Report by Tom Serby:
The Technology Partnership is one of the new breed of hi-tech opposition that has filled the breach left by the demise of the erstwhile pub teams (see yesterday's match report); but it must be said their cricket was more pub than hi-tech. Skipper Olly Rex skilfully led a youthful Remnants team (Olly was surprised to find himself very nearly in the older half of the team) to an easy victory.
Openers Grant Kennedy (30* off 28 balls) and Tom Serby (45* off 37 balls) reprised their successful opening partnership from the Cherry Hinton fixture earlier in the season, in distinctly better weather (although this was still a two or maybe even three layer type of evening). In very quick order, Grant, with orthodox cover drives and pulls, sprinted to his retirement (TTP home rules: retirement at the end of the over in which 30 runs scored). Tom, to his good fortune, found himself on 27 at the start of an over, and with nothing to lose scored 18 off it. Meanwhile Julius Rix (31* off 20 balls) had been threatening to race to retirement before Tom, clubbing his trademark sixes over midwicket off full tosses. Momentum was kept up by Olly (6 off 4 balls), Karti Malik (3 off 6 balls) and Samuel Serby (14 off 12 balls), bludgeoning and improvising to good effect.
Chasing 148/4, TTP lost wickets regularly. Felix Serby (1/13), Shoaib Shahid (1/14) and Karti Malik (3/8) all had success with the ball, and were well supported by excellent fielding by, among others, John Young, but it was Alec Armstrong opening the bowling from the Huntingdon Road end who opened the breach in the TTP batting wall (illegally tampered with their batting programming system?). Surreally the carousing of the College rugby team's annual drinking fest in the bar permeated the evening's cricket; more surreal was Alec's second wicket (of 4, for 28), which left him on a hat-trick. An extremely powerfully built middle order batsman, clad in a black t-shirt, arrived at the crease, surveyed the field very purposefully, and swung his arms so vigorously that if, as seemed entirely possible, the bat slipped from his grasp, it would have carried a good way to the boundary. Thus prepared, and the onlookers already mentally preparing themselves for broken tiles on the pavilion roof, he prodded indeterminately at his first delivery and was bowled. This slightly set the tone for their innings.