Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Up until a week ago May 23 was given resolutely as "to be arranged" in the fixture list, although the reality was that we'd tried all the arranging we could think of - without success. The last-ditch effort was a club-wide e-mail which worked almost immediately as Chris Badger and Matt Samson independently replied that their league side, Cambridge St Giles, should be able to get a team together. That meant twenty-two people got to enjoy cricket in the sun on the perfect May evening - the idea that we'd all have been sat at home watching re-runs of The Professionals on ITV3 doesn't bear thinking about.
It wasn't all good news, though, as the fact that St Giles's first team plays in Tucker 2 surely meant that we were going to be up against some seriously good players - and, sure enough, a bunch of proper cricketers with enormous kit bags duly arrived at Fitz well before 6pm. Our best chance was to bat first and, hopefully, exploit their faster bowling while the ball was hard and the ground dry, before strangling them with our trundlers once the air cooled and the dew settled. So it was a great pity that the St Giles captain called correctly and, inevtiably, elected to bat.
Still, we kept things vaguely under control for the first half of our innings as Daniel Mortlock (2/13) and Remnants first-timer Temoor Khan (0/13, combining big-turning leggies with fast top-spinners) made good use of the coveted tennis court end, while Andy Owen (0/18) and Andrew Granville (1/15) were also pretty effective from the other end with its worryingly-short leg-side boundary. Thanks in part to St Giles's self-imposed retirement rule, were maybe even on top when, after 14 (six-ball) overs, they had just 82 on the board. Even better, the current bowlers hadn't used up their allotments, with both Paul Jordan (0/13 off his first 2 overs) and Faruk Kara (2/14 off his first 3 overs) apparently well on top of the batsmen. That sense was only reinforced when Paul induced two outside edges at the start of his next over - and, given that the batsman, one Ben Hammersley, plays in St Giles's first team, that must have been particularly satisfying . . . except for the fact that the ball raced to the boundary on both occasions. And this, unfortunately, is where most of the balls from Faruk's next over went as well, as Hammersley repeatedly tested the effectiveness of the netting that protects the greenhouses to the west of the ground. 36 runs came from those 2 overs and suddenly our grip on the game was lost - as was our grip on the ball, at least when it was hit along the ground, a number of boundaries coming from shots which really should have been stopped. There was some suggestion that the reason for this was bad bounces off the ridges left after the recent drainage works, but Dave Norman (playing today) assured us that the ground was like a billiard table and that there are "no bobbles on Fitz" . . . right before he let a ball through himself, albeit one that didn't reach the boundary. But where we did excel was in the air: Dave himself started the trend with a superb diving effort at mid-off; then Temoor introduced himself to the club by taking not one, but two, effortless outfield catches that would have had most of us (and certainly Andy Bell) getting The Fear; and 'keeper Matt Samson, playing against his regular league team-mates, took both a catch and a stumping (although the latter appeal was turned down by the square leg umpire - the batsman, rather uniquely, decided to walk).
In the end we were faced with a target of 151 to win against what was surely going to be a pretty testing attack. That said, batting was our team's strong suit tonight, with at least four players who regularly play at the requisite level - if one (or more!) of them could stay in for most of the innings then the we'd be in with a real chance of winning. Even losing 3 early wickets wasn't fatal - that just meant that our powerhouse middle order had more time to play themselves in. And that's just what Matt Samson and Dave Norman did, Matt scoring just 8 from his first 16 balls and Dave just 4 from his first 8. At 28/3 off 7 overs it was time to piss or get off the pot - and, happily, both opted for the former, 63 runs coming from the next 7 overs. Matt played his part, getting to 23 off 31 balls before being adjudged LBW, but it really was the Dave Norman show, as he repeatedly smashed the ball to - or over - the boundary. When he got clapped for reaching his half-century he started to head back to the pavilion - there'd been vague talk of emulating St Giles's retirement rule - but, with 10 an over still needed, Dave's presence at the crease was needed to keep the game alive. (The fact it was also our best route to getting a win was pure coincidence.)
And so it was great pity when he was well caught in front of the pavilion a few overs later. Dave's 60 off just 38 balls was easily the best innings of the day . . . although not the most interesting. That honour went to Temoor Khan, who started by effortlessly deflecting his first ball to the boundary, and then offered up a delicate reverse sweep, before single-handedly constructing one of the strangest run outs we've ever witnessed (which really is saying something). Backing up correctly as non-striker, he watched the batsmen smash a cover drive to the boundary . . . except the extra-cover fielder had made the cleanest of stops, seemingly without moving. There was clearly no possibility of a single, so the fielder just held the ball; but neither did Temoor return to the crease, and instead just gazed off into the distance where he presumed the ball to have gone. The fielder finally lobbed the ball back to the bowler, and while Temoor had belatedly realised the danger by this stage, it was way too late, and he had to head back to the pavilion run out (or, as Temoor himself suggested, either "sleeping on the pitch" or "I don't know what I am doing") for a rather unfulfilled 7 (off 5 balls). Naveen Chouksey (13* off 20 balls) and Daniel Mortlock (11* off 7 balls) made valiant, if unsuccessful, efforts to achieve a miracle - as well as trying to outdo Temoor's entry for strangest dismissal of the evening. Naveen's best entry was a crazily unbalanced pull shot that saw him flung several feet outside the crease by his own momentum; the 'keeper took the bails off in the one moment that Naveen's bat briefly hit the ground, and then forgot about the possibility of pulling out a stump before inexplicably losing control of the ball. Not that this one slip mattered: other than that, St Giles had out-fielded us all day, and in the end ran out deserved winners by 15 runs.