Just about every Remnants member was down to play in today's match at one stage or another, with all but eleven of those cancelling at some later stage or other. Somehow we did end up up with a full team, but a measure of our desperation was that it included three debuts for the club: Paul Evans, Luke Chapman and Sam Dolan, the latter enterprisingly grabbed on the day by the ever-resourceful Dave Green.
We batted first against The Beehive (whose attack was spearheaded by one Russell Woolf) and collapsed to a miserable 89/8. Mike Jones (12), Martin Parry (17) and Luke Chapman (12) at least made it into double figures, but otherwise it was a case of politely clapping batsmen back to pavilion for well-made 4s and 5s.
It was a different story when we took to the field, though. Chris Martin (1/4 off three eight-ball overs), Les Collings (2/16) and John Gull (1/15) were all economical and penetrating, and the fielders backed them up, John and Nick Clarke both taking excellent catches. After 8 eight-ball overs The Beehive were just 29/3, but so low was our target that they were probably still ahead, needing 61 off 56 balls with plenty of wickets in hand. Still we were back in the game . . . but a few loose overs saw to it that, despite Mike Jones (1/4) taking a wicket in the final over, the winning runs were hit with four balls to spare.