Report by Tom Serby:
Nobody seems sure whether today or the 21st is the longest day of the year; whatever, it felt like the longest evening if you were in the field for Remnants. Granta batted first and Messrs Hammersley and Atkinson, fresh from East Anglian Premier League duty, tucked into Remnants' openers (Naveen Chouksey, 1/28 and Gabriel Fox, 0/64 [thus finally relieving Anton Garret of his long-standing burden of having delivered the most expensive spell in club history - ed.]), passing 50 within 4 (six-ball) overs. Skipper Paul Jordan (1/22) put the brakes on a bit [and became the second Remnant, after Tony Malik, to 250 wickets - ed.], but the greatest threat to Granta's batters was the yell from the pavilion leading to retirement. Fourteen-year-old Middlesex Academy player Max Holden entertained with some deftly placed strokes, in a brief hiatus to the six hitting. David Norman (1/23), with ball in hand, enjoyed sparring with his former teammates and it was only the presence of this (former) Granta player in the Remnants ranks that prevented this game entering the record books for high and low innings totals respectively.
In Remnants innings Granta opened the bowling with Jack Upton, who returned figures of 3 oves, 3 maidens, 2/0. The bright spot for the home team apart from David's feisty bowling and feistier batting (70* off 47 balls) was the Remnants debut of Joe Howarth (14 off 10 balls), who was the only other Remnant to reach double figures. Quizzed by his captain before the game on what his cricketing strengths were, Joe modestly gave an account of how he "used to be" (but by implication no longer was) a medium pace bowler. He didn't get the chance to show whether this was false modesty as he wasn't called upon to bowl, but this being a Granta match pretty much all Remnants including Joe got a chance to bat. The consensus among his watching teammates was that "bucolic" best described his batting technique; an apt description if the notional shepherd hits the ball very long and high.
The thrashing duly completed, Remnants showed they excelled Granta in convivial post match drinking by the same margin as Granta excelled us at cricket.