Report by John Moore:
"If you are going to lose, you might as well lose good and proper and try to sneak a win." - Ted Dexter
The last throws of summer at glorious Fitz sees the arrival of a youthful Coton (led by Remnants old boy Gabriel Fox) taking on a less than youthful Remnants (led by Rems young boy Olly Rex). We were joined by die-hard fans Owen (x3), Mrs Rex, Dave "The Destroyer" Norman and our official photographer Mr Motivator Green. What ensued was a fairly routine mix of Remnants cricket with big boundaries, neat and tidy running, great backing up, miss fields, run outs, dodgy appeals and general laughter.
Our illustrious captain Oli Rex chose to bat, where Ferdi "The Destroyer Mark 2" Rex unleashed his bat "by the power of Greyskull!" It wasn't long before he was called in on 35 for retirement and thereby handing over the reins to the rest of us to accumulate hardly any runs. Tim Canning (9), Richard Rex (7), John Moore (6) and extras (27) were some of the highlights. But unknown to all of us this was in fact part of our great plan as it allowed Ferdi back to the crease to smash another 30 runs in about 12 balls before being caught in the last over. A special note goes here for number 11 Quentin Harmer (1*) as he was successfully willed by his team mates to the non-batting end of the wicket. 123 looked quite respectable.
Alec Armstrong opened the bowling with some clever balls and finished on an excellent 2/19, Andrew Granville had the best three overs with his 1/11. The bowling continued well with fairly low scoring spells from Moore (0/13) and Harmer (1/20), at which point it looked like a very tall task for Coton to catch us, but to Gabriel's credit he had been very fair with allowing his young players to get a bat and bought in his big hitter at the end to almost, but not quite cross the line. They need a six off the last ball to win it but Ferdi's bowling just did enough.
Another fine day for Remnants and the world of cricket. For me the win was a lot to do with our fine spirit in the field, Josh Nall was entertaining as wicket keeper but never stopped giving 100%, James Crozier had a lot of action his way on the field and although it would be easy to give Ferdi man of match with his 65 my vote goes to John Young for his athletic fielding at mid-wicket.
So we all retired for a few enjoyable beers, shook hands and slowly left our arena. Much like the parting fountain scene in Ocean's Eleven . . . well almost but not quite!
Hope to see you all at the end of year bash.