Remnants won the middle half of today's traditional early-season encounter with Coton. In the last part of our innings Tom Serby (60* off 41 balls) and George Speller (35 off 22 balls, a predictably good knock given he was playing against his old club) went to town, compiling an 82 run partnership off just ?? balls. And our defense started just as strongly, George (0/6) and Tom Jordan (0/23) keeping the Coton openers to 43 runs off 7 (eight-ball) overs.
With Coton needing 92 from 64 balls it should have been a case of just closing them down, but a combination of our rather unpenetrative bowling and a determined innings of 81* from Coton opener Ross Chandler prevented this desireable outcome. Despite some great fielding by John Richer, Richard Rex, Tom Jordan and Andy Owen (his usual catch at silly-point), in the end we couldn't even take the game into the final over.
There was also the small matter, several hours earlier, of our top order being decisively bettered by tight bowling: when we'd limped our way to 17/4 after ?? overs an eventual total of 134 was no more than a crazy fantasy, so maybe we should feel good about the fact we manage to get back into the match so well.
And we should - or at least did - feel good about getting the year's first post-match pints at the Fitz bar . . . although hopefully next time we'll have something more interesting to debate than whether an 8 wicket loss is better or worse than a 92 run defeat the night before.