Report by Daniel Mortlock:
In the last couple of seasons Remnants has acquited itself well against most of our regular opposition, with the exception of The Cavendish Laboratory. They lost a total of just 7 wickets in their last three victories over us, thanks largely to the sublime batting skills of one Arindam Ghosh, who has also been known to ply his trade for Granta's first team. Thus I decided to use some of my underworld connections (i.e., the fact that I used to work at the Cavendish) to sneak a look at an e-mail with the opposition's team list to find out if he was down to play tonight.
"Arindam" was, thankfully, nowhere to be found but, rather worryingly, "Wednesday" was. Either the physicists were going to use top secret time travel techniques to retrospectively place their fielders under all our lofted shots or, more likely, there'd been some sort of administrative stuff up. Such is the magic of e-mail, however, that just an hour after this potential disaster was noticed, Malcolm Kennett, the Cavendish CC's secretary, had marshalled a full team for this evening (containing Arindam, unfortunately), and thus the fixture was able to go ahead as planned.
We won the toss and, stung by the ease with which the previous Cavendish run chases had proceeded, chose to bowl first. This decision paid immediate dividends when Daniel Mortlock (2/12) bowled the above-mentioned Mr Kennett for a "diamond duck" - hardly a just reward for his sterling administrative efforts but, as he said, "I should have hit it." Robin Woolley (1/25) also bowled well, and was unlucky to take just the one wicket, with two outfield catches going down off his bowling.
With the score at 24/2 after 5 (eight-ball) overs we seemed to be doing pretty well, but then Arindam (68) and another Granta I player, Geoff Wilmott (44), combined for a brutal 97-run partnership. A few more outfield chances went begging - clearly an area on which work is needed - but otherwise we did brilliantly in the gloomy conditions, John Gull, Colin Anderson, and the new Jameses (Steggles and Morgan) doing the bulk of the work. The latter also got rid of Wilmott with a direct hit run out and, after Phil Watson (2/30) had Ghosh well caught at cover by Tony Malik, we found ourselves coming off the field with the healthy but chaseable total of 130 in our sights.
Our pursuit started brilliantly, Nick Clarke (19) and John Gull (53*) hitting out and, more importantly, running aggressively from the outset. They received excellent support from extras (eventually 30) and also from the weather - much of our innings was played in rather heavy rain, making fielding much harder than it had been for us, and negating what might otherwise have been rather dangerous leg spin. It was touch and go whether we'd keep playing - Chris Woolley certainly didn't like the look of it, and handed over umpiring duties to a reluctant Geoff Hales, who can only have been even less pleased when he suddenly had to deal with a full-blooded pull heading straight for his face. He deflected the ball with his open palm (a la Darth Vader using The Force to block Han Solo's blaster shot towards the end of The Empire Strikes Back), but then had to endure uncharitable accusations that he "never fielded like that for us" and Rob Harvey's polite suggestion that he might "count for five runs, like a helmet". Not that he was the only Remnant to be the subject of home-crowd barracking: with the run chase going well we'd all become rather excited, the wild demands for extra runs turning hysterical when, for example, the batsmen declined a run off a wide (presumably in the mistaken belief that it wouldn't count). And words can't even begin to describe the savage screams that were induced when John Gull, having played a good pull shot, lost control of his bat and ran off towards fine leg to retrieve it rather than going for the easy runs on offer.
The irony of all this was that, even after we lost a couple of wickets, we were always ahead of the required rate. This was down to a superb and unbroken 86 run partnership - the highest of the year so far - between John and James Morgan (21*). John's innings was all the more remarkable as he had been in a cast until a few days earlier and had been unable to do any exercise, let alone play cricket, for a few months. In the end James hit the winning runs with 11 deliveries and 8 wickets in hand - a ridiculously comfortable victory against a such a good team.
We were certainly happy to bask in the feeble orange glow that was finally coming through a gap in the dark clouds, although all credit to the Cavendish players who'd fielded - brilliantly, in a few cases - in the most miserable conditions without complaint. There will probably be a return fixture later in the season, so let's just hope i) we both have the same date in our diaries, ii) we get to play in nicer conditions than we did today and iii) we win!