The 22 Remnants and UCLES players tentatively headed over to Fitzwilliam half expecting the pitch to be under water, or, failing that, a torrential downpour to start upon the umpire saying ``Play.'' None of these things happened, and indeed we recorded a rather satisfying victory against our very friendly opposition (even if there were some Kiwis amongst them).
UCLES never appeared too likely to post a high target, with most of the bowlers either getting wickets or conceding few runs (or both). Les Collings (2/19) found himself on a hat-trick at one point (not that the fielders seemed to notice, moving further away from the bat if anything) and Paul Jordan (1/12) got a wicket with the first ball of his spell. Less lucky were Daniel Mortlock (0/4 off four overs) and Mark ``Buzz'' Burrows (whose figures were inflated by an over-keen umpire who even called a wide on a shot that was hit behind square leg for a single) as our un-named but diminutive slip fielder had apparently been having lucrative negotiations with Pakistani bookmakers. Towards the end of the UCLES innings their captain (who scored 41) looked like posting a reasonable target, but Paul Henderson (2/7) and Phil Marshall (1/28 off two eventful overs) got late wickets to make sure they ended up with just 109.
The first half of our run-chase suggested that ``just 109'' would be more than enough for UCLES to claim victory -- whilst they didn't look terribly likely to claim many wickets, we didn't look likely to score many runs either. But then Dave Williams, having apparently taken 7 or 8 overs to check that the pitch was in fact true and straight, went wild, smashing most of his 70 runs in the next few overs, and going about this in a most stylish manner. Sadly he was out with the target in sight, but it was still a most impressive innings. The last 20-or-so runs were picked off by Tony Malik (18* in an act of redemption) and Phil Watson (13*), although some faffing about did mean that we finished with just 4 balls to spare.