Report by Daniel Mortlock:
The lead up to this, the first game of the Remnants summer, saw a particularly nasty outbreak of the nameless pre-season malaise which seems to afflict the club around this time every year. The main symptom was a measles-like outbreak of red "unavailable" dots on Pitchero: it was only a last-minute call around for players that allowed us to assemble even a single eleven - just as well tonight's was the only fixture scheduled this week. The causes were more difficult to identify, but seem to include St Giles Syndrome (characterised by extreme fertility) along with a more subtle weather-induced psychological condition that saw Faruk ruefully admitting the only reason he hadn't put himself down to play was the assumption that conditions would be miserable this evening. Not unreasonable, given that previous early season games had even seen snow . . .
. . . so it is most pleasing (well, not for Faruk) to be able to report that conditions this evening were fabulous: warm enough that most people played without jumpers; dry enough for well-hit shots to race across the outfield; and, thanks to both teams playing with purpose, light was never an issue. It also helped that both sides were largely assembled at the nominal start time of 5:30pm, allowing a genuine toss: we called correctly - only the Sharks' captain had a coin - and hence opted to bat first.
With the new ball swinging in the anomalously humid conditions we struggled initially: after the 3rd (eight-ball) over - a rare T/20 wicket maiden - we were in trouble at 14/2. From then on, however, it was pretty much one-way traffic as we scored at more than 10 an over for the rest of the innings. And, even better, the fun was shared around: "seventh decade" veteran Tom Serby (30* off 30 balls) was the only player on either side to make it to retirement; Remnants first-timers Martin Heginbotham (24 off 12 balls) and Zaid Ahmed (15 off 11 balls) hit more than a third of the balls they faced to (or over) the boundary; and then nominal bowlers Joe White (24* off 17 balls) and Pete Ames (10 off 7 balls) took us to a surely winning early season total of 132/6.
With Joe thus nicely warmed up, and on the back of several nets, it was natural to hand him the new ball (well, the innings-old ball that looked more like something that you'd find in a specimen jar). With two slips in place, Joe charged in . . . and sent down a chest-high full-toss that was almost, but not quite, too wide to be cut past the point fielder. A bad omen, surely . . . although it turns out for the batters: they managed just nine scoring shots from the next five overs; and Joe (0/12) ended up conceding 8 more runs.
At the half-way point the Sharks' total was just 33/4, fully 100 runs short of their target, and the game was clearly over as a contest. Freed from any pressure, we entered a fantasy "can do no wrong" state, as best evidenced by the way in which the rest of the bowlers performed way better than could reasonably be expected. Naveen Chouksey was borderline unplayable and his figures of 2/12 were his 7th best in 144 Remnants games; Daniel Mortlock, despite not having touched a cricket ball since last September, picked up where he left off last season, taking 3/4, his 13th best figures in 385 Remnants games; John Moore bamboozled as seldom before to take 3/23, his 6th best figures in 215 Remnants games; and Pete Ames went through the gears from wicket-taking near double-bouncers to beautifully-flighted leg-spinners to take 2/16, his 7th best figures in 57 Remnants games. Pete also took a nice boundary line catch (having been placed specifically in front of the pavilion clock the ball before - another "Midas touch" moment), although the real star was clearly Martin, who kept wicket brilliantly, taking two sharp catches and making an unbelievable stumping when he picked up a leg-side ball from Daniel on the half-volley and had the bails off so quickly that most people couldn't work out what had happened. Martin hence immediately entered the Remnants record books as it's the first time in club history that a player has completed 3+ dismissals on debut. By the time we took the final wicket without even realising it, the whole thing had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, inducing hopefully irrational fears that we'd inadvertently used up a season's worth of luck in a few joyous hours.
