Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Writers from Homer onwards have known that punishment awaits those who go against the natural order of things, and so it was with trepidation that we converged on Fitz as the away team for a non-traditional Friday fixture against a Fitzwilliam College side. Conditions were dark and cold - so much so that some of the softer members of the team (Hi Dave! G'day Phil!) resorted to two jumpers - and the constant threat of rain hung like the sword of Damocles over the game.
Whilst Fitz had an elegant sufficiency of players by 6pm, we numbered only seven, so once again got to bat first without having to go through the mundanity of a coin toss. Ev Fox (21) and Phil Watson (49) put together a superb 81 run opening partnership, the former playing a supporting role as the latter played the most sublime innings of the year so far. The only blemish was the final drive that just failed to clear mid off and left Phil stranded one short of what would have been the most deserved of half centuries. Fitz then came back well, and our total only became respectable when John Gull (30*) smashed 21 off the final over, reclaiming top spot in the batting averages in the process.
Fielding in the cold damp conditions was never going to be easy, and the Fitzwilliam top order looked capable of exploiting the conditions to the full, running aggressively enough to induce plenty of misfields and a ridiculous number of overthrows. Fortunately our youth policy paid dividends, the Leys School opening attack of Guy Wiedermann (1/18) and Robin Woolley (1/17) both getting vital early wickets that put us in the box seat. Joe White (2/13, too fast for the batsmen again) and Daniel Mortlock (2/21) then capitalised on the good start, reducing Fitzwilliam to 65/7 in the 15th over.
Finally it seemed we had enough time to bowl a side out . . . but in the final stanza of the game things descended into a sort of joyous anarchy. Firstly Dave Green (2/21) provided Ev Fox with two sharply taken stumping chances in between delivering some of the widest wides in Remnants history. Then the Fitzwilliam number 8 smashed the bowling to all corners of the ground as they scored at more than 10 an over. None of us could do anything to halt his scoring, but in the end was halted by the tinny tones of his mobile phone, nestled in his pocket and devilishly difficult to operate in wrong-handed batting gloves. And even off the final ball the batsmen ran hard enough to get an extra run on a misfield and almost induce one final overthrow - it was hard not to think that their efforts were a tad over-optimistic, given that they still needed 24 to win . . . but such is the enthusiasm of youth.
The bar was filled to the rafters, but any illusions that cricket was the attraction were soon shattered by the fact that the congregation were paying homage to the temple of television, specifically Sweden vs. Italy at Euro 2004. Some of us valiantly kept talking cricket - encounters with Martin Crowe, Michael Atherton and even Al Gore - but it wasn't long before someone foolishly mentioned Phil's clean sheet against Liverpool in a '70s FA Cup quarter final . . .