It's become semi-traditional to have an early-season fixture against Downing College at their spacious grounds in south Cambridge, under the shadow of Addenbrookes' cold towers. Today we all made the trek down to Long Road (some more punctually than others -- sorry guys), but it was, apparently, for the last time. By next summer the lovely green space we lumbered about on today will have been turned into a carpark (can never have too many carparks). Another potentially traditional aspect of these games against Downing has been the score. For the last two years we've kept them down to 80-odd, only to have a top order collapse ourselves before limping to victory. Would this script be followed again today?
It certainly started out the right way: Downing batted first and had lost four wickets before our opening bowlers had gotten through their meagre three over allocations. Paul Jordan nabbed 2/23, thanks in part to superb catches by Rich Savage and Robin Woolley, although a couple of intimidating beamers may have scared the batsmen sufficiently to have them prefer the safety (and warmth) of the dressing room. At the other end George Speller took 2/15, beating the bat numerous times and generally bowling like an opening bowler should. With Downing tottering at 45/4 it was the spinners' chance to finish them off, which they didn't. Daniel Mortlock (0/15) got lots of turn, but not much bite, whereas Les Collings (1/9) was both more menacing and unluckier, having a few catches go down off his bowling. The most amusing was a skier which gave the hapless fielder (resplendent in his pale-blue England one day shirt) the chance to think about taking off his cap, decide not to, and then change his mind again, before the ball thudded into the soft grass at his feet. Downing ended up getting 82/6, right on the money, with Rob Harvey (1/9 with some nice movement away from the batsmen) and Rich Savage (0/9) keeping the pressure on 'til the end.
We came into bat seemingly determined to go down the same road as previous years: at the end of the first over we were 4/2, with a current and a previous captain continuing our leaders' usual run of low scores in May. More annoying was the fact that the bowler responsible for this poor start was the same guy who'd been such a clueless umpire half an hour earlier: after calling ``wide'' on any ball that the batsmen chose not to hit, he had to be informed of the ``dead ball'' phenomenon when an attempted leg bye was taken without a stroke being played. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Rich Savage (42* with lots of punishing shots through cover) and Phil Marshall (15, highlighted by his favourite straight drives) took us to 40 without further loss, and then Andy Owen (18*) joined Rich to see us through to a comfortable win.
By this stage it was dark and very cold (so you didn't miss the lovely evening sunshine after all, Sal) and we all wanted to scurry home to the horrific sight of Arsenal winning the double.