Report by Daniel Mortlock:
One of the most pleasing recent local cricket developments has been the emergence of the lively Cambridgeshire Over 50s scene, with the county fielding several teams in national competitions. Given Remnants' age profile, it's no surprise that we have a significant involvement, with club regulars like Cam Petrie, Andy Owen, Stephen Doel and Simon Godsill all making appearances - and, while he doesn't play that much for Remnants, Dave Norman is a fixture in the Over 50s first team. This year the Over 50s have done brilliantly in the top-level inter-county competition, with a semi-final against Yorkshire coming up this Saturday at Fitz . . . which meant the friendly side (recently giving the moniker the Bustards) were very keen for a solid warm-up against Remnants this evening.
It was thus slightly surprising that, having won the toss, they didn't elect to bat in what seemed like ideal conditions . . . but perhaps the cagey Bustards knew something we didn't, as the initial signs were not good: having run an easy single off the first ball of the innings, Julius Rix looked to be exhausted at the non-striker's end, leaning on his bat in the manner of someone who's just completed an ultra-marathon; and then, while playing an expansive sweep, Marcus Baker's foot slipped from under him, leading to the evening's big injury scare - fortunately there was no muscle tear and he was able to continue. And boy did he, smashing a dot-free sequence of 4 4 1 4 3 1 2 1 6 on his way to 35* retired (off 25 balls). Julius looked set to match him, before being caught behind (for 30 off 31 balls) off the decidedly under-50 Brajesh Kumar (one of several NCI players bolstering the opposition's numbers).
Things then went from the sublime to the, er, more sublime as Temoor Khan tightened his grip on our non-existant batting award with an elegantly destructive innings of 36* retired (off 23 balls), which took him to a club best 293 runs for the season. The highlight of his innings was when he strolled down the track and dismissed one of the opposition spinners over the square boundary; the lowlight was when the same bowler took it a bit too far with a ridiculous LBW appeal off a ball that, while on target to hit the stumps, had already found its path blocked by the middle of TK's bat. Late-innings cameos from Gaurav Patil (12 off 8 balls), Iqtedar Alam (6 off 7 balls), Joe White (8* off 8 balls) and Phil Hastings (9* off 11 balls) took us to a superb total of 146/3, which included 20 boundaries. The Bustards looked pretty demoralised at the change of innings.
While we of course headed out as a team to defend our total, our time in the field was effectively the individual tale of one man: Faruk Kara. He started brilliantly, holding onto a sharp catch at gully from a fairly solidly-hit cut off Daniel Mortlock (1/6).
. . . at which point all the rest of us saw was the horrible sight of Faruk suddenly dropping to the ground clutching his face - and, a few seconds later, much more blood than we'd have liked. For what seemed like an age there was a real fear that Faruk's injury was serious - had the ball hit his eye or smashed his glasses? - until it became clear that he was lucid and that it was "just" a nasty cut in his forehead. Moreover, we were lucky to have plenty of help at hand: Dave, literally right on the scene as non-striker, has proper first aid training; then Daniel at mid-on was able to use his one-day emergency first-aid at work training to say "put him in the recovery position" several times before finally justifying his policy of always wearing a jumper by offering it up as a pillow/sponge; and then we got the big guys, Addenbrookes surgeons Yash Verma and Rushabh Shah, both on secondment from NCI - and one even wearing a top with "MEDIC" in big letters. Aside from efficiently applying a bandage and doing some actual proper medical checks, their calm presence eased the tension of the situation, and in particular was vitally reassuring to Faruk. He was hence able to get off the ground under his own steam and was soon being taken to A&E by his wife Heather, who confirmed a few hours later that all was okay.
Taking stock, it was clear that the game was done - aside from the general feeling of post-adrenaline relief, we'd probably lost too much time finish the game anyway - so it was a case of heading home to think about just how brave we all are for playing low-level friendly cricket . . .