Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Faced with the wide open spaces and strange Bactrian (look it up!) pitch of Gonville & Caius's playing fields, it seemed clear that our best strategy was to bat first, trusting the slow and low pitch to make chasing in the twilight difficult even if we didn't post a big total. Any Remnants historians would certainly support that approach, as the team batting first has won 18 times in Remnants' matches here over the years, whereas the chasing team has won just . . .
. . . er . . .
. . . um, well it seems the chasing team has won 18 times as well. Still, when Daniel called correctly (heads, as always) at the toss, he had no hesitation in choosing to bat first.
We scored at a run a ball for most of our innings, which seemed okay given the way the ball was leaping off a length, but in retrospect we probably needed to be a bit more savvy in rotating the strike: our top four batsman between them allowed a total of 57 dot-balls to be entered into the three scorebooks on the go (so an even scarier total of 161 physical dots). It was also problematic that our partnerships always seemed to involve one batsman who was a bit stuck, at least for a while - clearly the pitch took some getting used to.
On this score Eli Ellwood (10 off 23 balls) was most unlucky, getting caught at point just as he'd begun to master the conditions, although it's arguable that Andy Owen (33* off 21 balls) and Joe White (33* off 35 balls, after starting with a dozen dots) were even unluckier, in so far as they had to return to the pavilion despite not getting out at all. (We were playing "retirement at 30", along with 2 runs and no extra delivery for wides and no balls.) Tom Serby (18 off 18 balls) looked good to join them until he chipped a lifter to point, although Ferdi Rex, having only come in the 11th (eight-ball) over, seemed unlikely to get the chance to collect his "pension". That, however, would be to neglect the fact he's in the form of his life (so far!) and is currently hitting boundaries at will. And so, despite starting the final over of the innings on just 10, he made it to retirement with three balls remaining - Ferdi smashed 6 4 2 4 6 off the ARM captain to take him to 32* off 15 balls (the fastest knock of the season so far). Add in the fact that Daniel Mortlock then hit 5* off the 3 remaining deliveries and we presumably had a demoralised opposing captain (who'd just had 27 taken from an over) and a similarly cowed opposition, knowing that they had to score at about 10 an over for their whole innings (or, to put it another way, more than had been scored batting second in any of the 36 games we've played here).
Any sense of smugness we might have had was erased within a minute: the ARM number one brought us back from our dream world by dismissively smashing the first three balls of the innings to the boundary: a four over mid-off; then a four over mid-on; and then a six over mid-wicket. Richard Rex, fielding at square-leg, asked him if he was going around in sequence, which seemed quite likely as the batsman moved back and across to pull the next ball over square-leg . . . except he didn't time the shot, and the ball soon found itself nestled in Richard's outstretched hands. Faruk Kara (1/31) had thus purchased our first wicket, after which we'd surely be able to get back to the sensible business of controlling the game . . .
. . . except that just didn't happen. ARM matched the required rate for for essentially their whole innings - they were never more than a single run below scoring at 10 an over. Our inability to stop their batsmen scoring is perhaps illustrated by our bowling figures: our most economical bowlers were Eli Ellwood and Daniel Mortlock, who both returned figures of 0/25 (hardly "tell the grandkiddies" stuff); and, other than Faruk, the only wicket-taker was Paul Jordan (1/20). It was baffling how completely impotent we were - normally there's at least an over or two overs of ascendancy, but here such sequences had to be measured in balls: Eli's first over included six consecutive dots; Daniel bowled an over from which just 4 runs were hit; Richard (0/23) successfully deployed his hyper-loopy leg-breaks to effect an over of mis-hits, but then tried to finish the over with a more conventional flatter delivery that was promptly driven to the cover boundary. (There were only three boundary-free overs in our whole innings!)
Our fielding was similarly lacklustre, the main story being ARM batsmen successfully grabbing risky second runs as something or other went wrong, be it fumbled pick-ups, wayward throws or poor takes thereof. Still, there were highlights: Eli and Ferdi Rex, were both fast-moving and quick-throwing on the square boundaries; Richard and Dave Green were rock-solid on the straight hits; and 'keeper Ev Fox completed a sharp catch standing up to Paul.
In the end, though, it was all for nowt, as ARM began the last over with scores tied, and hit the winning runs - yet another boundary - with six balls still remaining. And while it might have seemed we didn't have much to celebrate, we arrived back in the pavilion to find a spread of cheese, cake and Champagne (well, "sparking wine" as we now have to call it since the French got uncharacterstically snooty about the whole thing). The reason for all this was that Andy and Denise Owen had celebrated their silver (i.e., 25th) weddding anniversary on the weekend and had decided to share the party with us lot! So we quickly forgot about on-field events as we got sozzled and sated - there was plenty of joy in the warm pavilion even as darkness fell outside.
