Report by Paul Jordan:
Until Daniel's email hit the inbox most of us were in the dark who exactly The Hawks' Club were. By the time we arrived at the ground it was common knowledge that they were all University Blues - albeit but not necessarily in cricket. This however was not particularly reassuring as we were greeted with the sight of eleven fit, lithe 20-somethings gently limbering up with some bowling and fielding drills; we looked on in bemusement and strangled admiration.
In the absence of skipper Badger, Paul went out to the middle for the toss with their skipper and was persuaded that for their sakes to bowl first would make a better game of it. The subtext was that they were a better bowling side than batting, in spite of having one Ed Hyde, who had scored a run-a-ball ton in the Cambs Premier League on the weekend.
Remnants opened with Chris Badger and James Robinson, which followed by Dave Norman at no. 3 and Qaiser at no. 4 looked a pretty decent batting line up. The skipper's assessment of his bowlers was spot on. The bowling was generally accurate and backed up by safe "run-saving fielding". Unfortunately, both James and Chris perished much sooner than we had hoped which brought together Dave and Qaiser. The bowling wasn't exceptional but was quite tight, and both Dave and Qaiser (20) played some glorious shots for no runs. Our scoring then accelerated moving from 34 off 5 overs to 90 off 10. Dave Norman (58) had settled in to what looked like a big score losing two balls in the process, including a Duke ball much to Ed Hyde's chagrin. The change bowlers had removed both Dave and Qaiser leaving Andy Bell holding his bat ably supported by Pete Ames, Taz Islam and Joe White. Our total of 111 looked a bit light, with the general opinion that it needed at least another 30 runs to make it a more challenging total.
Bearing in mind the caveat of the Hawks' Club skipper's words ringing in our ears we looked forward to the weaker batting. The Remnants' openers of Joe White (0/17) and Qaiser Ahmed (1/12) bowled with a good line and length and restricted the score to 34 off 4 overs. The batsmen of the Hawks' Club defied their skipper's assessment by batting with some classy scoring shots and rarely looked in trouble. With the introduction of John Moore (0/33) fresh from his marathon swimming efforts and Faruk Kara (0/27) the game was rather taken away from us in those following overs. The Hawks' batsmen hit long and hard and even with a retirement more misery was in store. By the ninth over the game was all but over in spite of Paul's best efforts of (0/7) and Taz's best efforts the game was won in side 10 overs.
Although we were well beaten it was a game played in a great spirit and enjoyed particularly by the Hawks' Club members who remarked (rather depressingly) that this was their first game!