If the Remnants Cricket Club should last for a thousand years, men will not look back and say, ``This was their finest hour.'' Nor their finest day, or even finest week. After suffering a heavy defeat at the hands of Corpus Christi last night, we came up against what was allegedly Cambridge Granta third team, although it was actually a mix of all their sides. This did allow us to bolster our own ranks with their first team's vice-captain (and our favourite purveyor of lager shandies) Dave Norman, but it wasn't enough.
Dave (1/8 off 4 overs) did his bit to restrict Granta's scoring early on, but the rest of the bowlers weren't quite as economical, going for an average of about 9 an over. Andy Owen (standing up to everyone but Dave) effected a brilliant stumping, but this brought together two of their most serious batsmen, both of whom went on to half centuries. One was undefeated, whilst the other was eventually seduced by Anton Garrett, who took 1/12 at the death.
We all knew that chasing 158 was going to be difficult, and we suspected that just surviving wouldn't be too easy either. Still with big-hitters Nick Clarke and Dave Norman opening, there was a chance, surely? Well, no, as it turned out: after some anarchic calling Nick was run out for 5 and Dave was bowled by his brother-in-law for 13. However four other wickets had fallen in the meantime -- the bowling being just a bit too quick for us -- and we'd slumped to 29/6, with our lowest ever total still to be passed. Fortunately Granta took mercy on us, preferring to give their part-timers a bowl, and the season's two form batsmen -- Andy Owen (45*) and Faruk Kara (19, ending a sequence of about 150 runs between dismissals) -- took the score close to 100. By the end even Geoff Hales had made a rare appearance at the crease, finishing with a not-so-rare not out.
I think we were all glad to go home.