Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Last year Nick Clarke broke ranks and led his own Fen Ditton league side to a frustrating (for us) 7 run victory over Remnants. So today was all about getting a Mafia-style revenge and, in particular, letting people know that no good will come of them if they betray the Remnants family.
The punishment was instigated by Nick's most regular Remnants opening partner, Dave Williams, who hit 73 not out (off 60 balls) as we piled up a massive 191/1 in our 20 (six-ball) overs. Dave had equal support from each of three partners: Oliver Harris (33 off 35 balls), with whom he put on 112 for the first wicket; Remnants debutante Jon Steele (37* off 25 balls); and Ex Tras (an impressive 48, and once again supplying a solid punchline).
If there was any man capable of spearheading that sort of chase, though, it was Nick Clarke . . . and so it must have been gratifying to seem him almost immediately heading back to the pavilion, bowled by Rupert Brown (1/11) for a duck. Not that he was alone there: five more Dittonites failed to trouble the scorer as the likes of Brian Lea (2/9), Matt Hughes (1/1), Joe White (a rather expensive 1/12) and Julian Chilvers (3/13) had a field day.
Ironically captain Russell Woolf (0/1) was the only bowler not to take a wicket, although he was presumably happy to have maintained his 100% Remnants captaincy record, not to mention having presided over the second largest Remnants victory on record (beaten only by last year's nail-biter against The St Radegund).
Although maybe it wasn't too surprising that we won so convincingly today, as it turns out we had three internationals in the team: Joe White has been a member of a Belgian national team; Rupert Brown has played for Italy; and Julian Chilvers has represented France. And, frankly, how cool would it be to be able to say you're an international sportsman? And how cool would it be to be an international sportsman and keep it as quiet as these three have? In short: respect.
