It was an adventure into unknown territory for Remnants today. We hadn't visited the Cambridge University Press ground since 1996, and it's not clear we'd ever played on such a shaggy and over-grown outfield. Add in some rather humid conditions and it was all a bit slow and surreal, like a drugged-out dream sequence some eighties movie.
Tektronix won the toss and, unsurprisingly, elected to bat - it was pretty clear that the pitch would get even lower and slower as the evening went on. And it was slow enough to begin with: our pace attack (well, fastest bowlers, at any rate) struggled to get any zip off the pitch and didn't really manage to hurry the batsmen very much. Still, Naveen Chouksey (0/19) seemed to have made an early breakthrough when a healthy edge went straight into the hands of Tom Serby at first slip, but the ball bounced straight back out, after which Tom offered up the curious explanation that "You don't expect the ball to come to you there, do you?" It was thus rather ironic that Jeff Beaumont (2/26) also induced an edge, although this one did really fly and it wasn't too much of a surprise that it went between 'keeper and first slip. Not that Jeff could complain when he put down a return chance a few balls later - and he could indeed rejoice a bit later, as when we did finally hold a catch it was off his bowling, Richard Rex running around from long-off to make a very difficult chance look ridiculously easy. This was rather appropriate, as the Rex family were our stars in the field, Olly making some spectacular diving stops and Ferdi showing great commitment in stopping balls with his chest and chin, as well as going within inches of effecting what would have been a stunning direct-hit run out from the boundary.
The real story of the innings, however, was of the power of slow bowling in slow conditions. The Tektronix openers were trundling along at a run a ball until Alec Armstrong (2/17) and John Moore (1/15) put on the breaks. Alec's was probably the spell of the evening - there were no loose balls, and almost all the runs he did concede were off mis-hits. And John, aside from being comparably effective, also put in a pretty good entry for comedy wicket of the year when his first delivery pitched on the edge of the cut strip and turned even further away from the batsmen . . . who, possibly influenced by the "no extra ball for wides" rule we were playing under, took an ambitious swipe at it, only to somehow deflect the ball all the way back to the stumps, from which it delicately removed the off bail. (After the match John tried to offer this dismissal as a potential champagne moment, but Geoff was having none of it.) More importantly, we dramatically slowed the opposition's scoring: after their imposing start of 57/0 off 7 (eight-ball) overs, Tektronix scored just 51 runs from their last 8 overs as we kept them to 108/5.
109 mightn't sound like a particularly imposing target, but with the Sun now behind the trees - the floodlights on the neighbouring tennis courts came on half-way through our innings - and the ball bouncing ever lower we were faced with a decidedly non-trivial task. This notion was immediately confirmed as openers Nick Clarke (4 off 12 balls) and Tom Serby (5 off 11 balls) both struggled. After Ferdi Rex (an entertaining 15 off 14 balls) was brilliantly caught and bowled we were 54/3 after 7 overs - 3 runs and 3 wickets worse than our opposition had been at the same stage of their innings.
But really we were still in the box seat, with the required rate still below a run a ball and plenty of batting to come . . . not that we needed it, as Olly Rex (31* off 23 balls) and Jeff Beaumont (30* retired off 21 balls) combined some big aerial hits with aggressive running to complete our chase in double time. Well, they would have but for Jeff's enforced retirement, which allowed - or forced - Richard Rex (2* off 4 balls) to go out for one of those horrid "everything to lose and nothing to gain" mini-innings.
With an early win safely under our belt most members of both teams retired to the superb pavilion to sample the lagers and ales (well, ale) on offer. And even though our season is still in the red (10 wins vs. 11 losses in external games) we're at least moving in the right direction, having won our last three non-cancelled fixtures.