Hallelujah! A fantastic sunny day for a change, which had everyone in such a happy state that even the sight of Paul Jordan in shorts couldn't destroy the mood. Sadly several of our opposition, The Globe, had evidently decided the weather was better suited to having a few cleansing ales in the beer garden of their eponymous pub, and so they had to take to the field with just eight men.
Our innings began rather lazily as the top order played Test-style, with George Speller (46), Mike Sneyd (12) and Faruk Kara (18) taking a ``slowly but surely'' approach, despite the fact that there were just three fielders on each side of the wicket. To be fair, the opposition had a top-class strike bowler, whose figures of 1/6 off four overs were a fair reflection of his pace, even if he wasn't quite fast enough to justify a run up that seemed to begin on the neigbouring tennis courts. We did eventually get our run rate above five an over, mainly due to Phil Marshall (22*) hitting out in the last few overs, but it was Dave Williams's cameo innings that ensured yet another game with its fair share of the ridiculous.
Coming in with just a few balls remaining, Dave mis-timed a drive to mid-on and took an easy single . . . but then Phil noticed that the fielder had decided to hold onto the ball a bit too long, so he called Dave through for a cheeky (and somewhat risky) second. The fielder's reverie having been broken, he hurled the ball at the non-striker's stumps, only for it to slip through the hapless bowler's grasp, ending up in the vicinity of a vacant extra cover . . . and so Dave and Phil sauntered an easy third. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the fielders, but at least the horror was over.
Those of you who've seen Aliens, however, will know that one can never be too sure about these things.
Just as the queen alien managed to sneak on board the heroes' spacecraft to wreak some more acid-based havoc, the poor point fielder's casual lob back to the bowler was, well, a bit too casual. As the ball came to rest a few metres in front of -- would you believe it -- the original mid-on fielder, Dave stifled a yawn and called Phil through to complete the most ridiculous all-run four in Remnants history.
(A side note to trivia buffs: it's also the first ball in Remnants history to generate three -- no, four now -- paragraphs of reportage.)
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, we finished on 116/5 -- nothing special, but if recent games are anything to go by, probably enough of a total to defend.
Paul Jordan (0/15) and Les Collings (1/15) then kept The Globe's batsman under control, but it was our second change bowlers that caused the real trouble. George Speller (1/7) started off with two maidens and bowled the opposition's most talented and handsome player with such decisiveness that the smashed off stump had to head back to the pavilion alongside the vanquished batsman. But George's controlled destruction was as nothing compared to the near biblical mayhem caused by Russell Woolf, who took 4/22 despite the absence of his bunny, Mick Taylor, from The Globe's batting line-up. Finally, it fell to the Phils (Marshall, 1/16, and Watson, 1/2) to finish things off in style.
There was just time for a quick pint in the bar before Dave scurried back home (a 9:45pm curfew having been imposed by the powers that be), and it is a fairly tight Remnants outfit that has finished the first month of the season with five victories and just the two losses. Roll on summer.