Report by Daniel Mortlock:
On another implausibly glorious Fitzwilliam evening - or at least afternoon, since by 8pm dark clouds had closed in and a wind was whipping across the ground - Remnants won by virtue of arriving later than their opposition. Our three previous matches this season had all been won by the side batting first, as it had proved much harder to score later in the day with the ball keeping increasingly low. And so it was today: The Technology Partnership were probably out-gunned, but they were definitely - if inadvertantly - out-manoeuvered as, with only seven or eight Remnants present by 6pm, they really had no choice but to let us bat first.
Openers John Richer (9 off 12 balls) and Julius Rix (46 off 36 balls) began well, punishing the bad balls and grabbing plenty singles in between. The only TTP bowler to really pose a threat was Jamal, who was capable of getting the ball to zip past at nipple-height off a two-pace run up, and he was decidedly unlucky to go wicketless. Once he'd completed his spell, though, the bowling held few threats, and we were able to build our total in relative comfort, even if the lack of pace made it difficult to find the boundary. Joe White (27 off 26 balls) continued where John and Julius had left off, although Daniel Mortlock (12* off 16 balls) seemed on the verge of undoing all the top order's good work by starting with a sequence of six dot balls that left us still in double figures with just two (eight-ball) overs remaining.
Fortunately for us, one of TTP's bowlers got the yips, and the second-last over was a mess of no balls and wides - in one case both calls were made on a single delivery - that ended up costing 24 vital runs.
A target of 130 runs from 112 deliveries mightn't sound too challenging - especially if you've been watching the Indian Premier League, where totals of 180+ are now seen as gettable - but facing Joe White backed by a healthy wind and a dark sky it must have seemed rather daunting. Certainly Joe was too good for the batsmen today - his figures of 3 overs, 0 maidens, 0/4 were decent enough, but decidedly unlucky, a rather plumb-looking LBW appeal being denied, a thin edge being dropped, and several other deliveries missing the top of off stump by millimetres. These misses briefly induced worries that we were going to muck up our defense, a fear that was maybe heightened when Daniel dropped a pretty straightforward catch off the bowling of Faruk Kara (1/18) and was heard to mutter "Well he'd be back in the hutch if I could catch" when the reprieved batsman smashed the next ball to the boundary. But "back in the hutch" is where he had to go one ball later when Daniel was presented with that rarest of commodities - a second chance - and this time held onto a near repeat of the shot two balls earlier.
From there we turned the screws ever tighter: Russell Woolf (1/17), Harvey Hughes (2/25) and Nick Johnson (1/13) got their first (Remnants) wickets of the season, and Harvey, Julius Rix and Joe Howarth all fielded brilliantly, repeatedly saving runs to heap more and more pressure on the batsmen. With the tail-enders now batting and the low clouds having induced an artificially early twilight, Daniel invoked "captain's privelege" to send down a few straight darts in what could certainly not be called "batsman-friendly" conditions. The result was a wicket-fest and figures of 4/3 - his best in 251 Remnants games - and a part share in a run out (although it was really down to Joe White's calm stop and measured throw, along with the batsman's suicidal call). TTP's innings finished an over short when 'keeper Dave Norman completed the sharpest of stumpings - he whipped off the bails during the fraction of a second that the batsman's foot was in the air - and thus denied Nick a second over to increase his wicket tally.
For once members of both sides stayed on for a pint, although it must have been rather galling for the Technology Partnership players to watch conditions brighten considerably as the clouds parted the moment their innings was over . . .