With two wins on the trot, Remnants is on a roll . . . or at least a mini-baguette, according to Geoff, never one to get carried away. And today was surely a superb chance to complete a ``threepeat'' of victories by defeating The Computer Lab, a team we've had the wood on ever since the club's first match, back in 1981. Today's match was also set to be historic in its own little way, being Phil Watson's genuine, honest guv', final appearance for Remnants before moving west.
As such he took charge of the side and led us out into the field as the sun beat down on Caius College's immaculately mowed playing fields. Our bowling was decidedly unpenetrative -- nominal spearheads Daniel Mortlock (0/8), George Speller (0/15) and Joe White (0/15, and even taken off) managed no more than containment and harshly-called wides (one of which passed over leg stump), although Bryan Lea (1/24) was unfortunate to get just the one wicket when a number of top edges dropped in the gaps. We didn't get our second wicket 'til the fifteenth over, and even that had very little to do with the bowling and a great deal to do with John Gull diving full length to catch a well-hit pull at short mid-wicket. That finally shook things up, with Faruk Kara (3/17) and Andy Owen (2/7) going through the middle order towards the end of The Computer Lab's innings.
Andy's success almost caused real trouble, though -- Phil was all set up to bow out in his traditional way, by bowling the final over, when Andy took his two wickets with the last to balls of the 18th over. So now we could have the hat-trick ball or Phil's farewell, but not both -- what to do? The solution turned out to be simplicity itself: despite the fact that we'd all changed ends while the new batsmen made his epic journey from the distant pavilion, it wasn't the end of the over at all. We thus resumed our positions, Andy bowled a brilliant leg-break, beating both batsman and stumps by miles and then, an over later, Phil (0/6) finished off the innings, Cambridgeshire never again to see his parabolic nude balls, a fact for which most local batsmen will no doubt be very thankful.
We shouldn't really have let the opposition score as many as they did, but with a monster batting line-up (some nine of whom had scored mid-week fifties) and a docile pitch, any problems scoring the 133 needed for victory would almost certainly have to be of our own making. Andy Owen (33 off 47 balls, batting in his a helmet in his first match back post-injury) and Faruk Kara (17 off 21 balls before unluckily managing to pull a near-wide back onto his stumps) started off okay, running well between the wickets and taking us to 39/1 off 7 overs. Things were moving a little slowly, though; with 94 needed off 78 balls it was time to step it up . . . and so there immediately followed a sequence of soft dismissals and crazy run outs.
It was in the midst of this mayhem that Phil came to the crease for the last time, with a chance to script a better ending for himself than last night's ``yes-wait-no-sorry'' disaster. And there were differences this time 'round: the calling was reduced to a far more efficient ``yes-no-sorry'' and tonight Phil was trudging back to the pavilion with just a single to his name. Still, at least he managed to score more than Bradman did in his farewell knock.
A corollary of all this was that our run chase had stalled just when it had needed to go up a gear: of the middle order only Daniel Mortlock (12 off 13 balls) and John Gull (20* off 13 balls) made it into double figures. But even John couldn't manage five sixes off the last over, leaving Joe White (4* off 3 balls) to hit a comedy one-handed four as the match petered out into a comfortable Computer Lab victory.
Thus we fell off the roll on which we were, at best, precariously balanced, coming to the half-way mark of the season with five wins and eight losses (or six wins, ten losses and a tie, if one includes the six-a-side games). Hardly a triumph, but a dozen more runs in a couple of those failed chases would have been sufficient to see our ledger squared up, so at least we're not being reguarly thrashed or anything unspeakable like that. Certainly we've been getting the bowling right, with Stas Shabala (4 wickets at 7.50), Tom Jordan (9 wickets at 8.78), Mike Jones (5 wickets at 9.60). Jim Higginson (6 wickets at 10.67), Andy Owen (4 wickets at 11.00), Faruk Kara (6 wickets at 11.67) and Rupert Brown (5 wickets at 11.80) all deserving contenders to top the bowling averages. The problem, of course, has been our inability to score runs quickly and reliably, and only four batsmen have even made it into triple figures so far, with Daniel Mortlock (142 runs at 23.67) and Dave Williams (175 runs at 25.00) having played a few useful innings, Andrew Lea (153 runs at 38.25) wonderfully consistent, and John Gull (203 runs at 25.38) shaking off a horror start (including a sequence of 1, 5, 1, 6, 1 and 5) to be back to his mercurial best (145 runs off 99 balls for once dismissed in the last six days). It does at least feel as if the batting's slowly coming together, tonight's disappointing effort notwithstanding, so with even a little luck in the coming months we should be able to win more often than we lose.
What we won't be able to do is watch Phil get food caught in his beard any more, and so seven of our number took the opportunity for one final viewing experience after tonight's game. The initial plan of curry at the India House somehow turned into pizzas and mezze at Kami's, and it was midnight by the time we'd downed our complimentary post-dinner drinks and headed off home to contemplate that most unnatural of concepts, a Wastonless July.