I won the toss; feeling that we probably stood a chance with the bat, I put us in. I’d revised the order to put our strongest recent line-up at the top, and rather hoped we might match the 400 we scored last week.
Vicus was the first wicket to fall, with the score on just 21. He came off holding his stomach, muttering about something he’d eaten. I can’t imagine what.
Tom and I made a bit more of a fight of things, pushing on to 112 (with a nice half-century for Tom) before he was caught.
Jona supported me well, as I pushed on past my half-century, although she seemed unable to time the ball herself, and eventually fell cheaply – I don’t think she’s fully recovered from last week’s century, and the kids returning to school: 159-3.
Sadly, the next over I too departed: 164-4.
Carol didn’t hang around for long: 168-5.
Frangelita scored a few quick runs before being bowled: 196-6.
Richard had seemed in good form, so I was sad to see his wicket fall, at 208-7.
Medusa and Ivy now made a nice little stand, to push our score a bit closer to 300, before Ivy was out: 244-8
Medusa fell shortly after this: 251-9.
With just Phil and Lisa left at the wicket, it seemed unlikely that many more runs would follow. However, they both played like demons, with Lisa very clearly the dominant partner, taking on every quick single she could make Phil run. Sadly she was out just short of her half-century; Phil’s 24 not out will help his average too. Our final score: 318-10.
Well, that was considerably better than the 94 we’d managed against them last time. Now we just had to get some wickets (you will recall that when we played them before, we were unable to get either of their openers out).
I made the first breakthrough, when Frangelita made an impressive athletic catch, which appeared to involve a double back somersault, a pike and the Heimlich manoeuvre: 28-1.
After that they dug in, as we worked through our usual six bowlers without effect, as the runs piled up. Eventually I returned to our opening pair, taking a wicket myself: 121-2.
Tom finally had an LBW appeal accepted: 150-3.
On returning to our second pair, Vicus had an edge held by Richard: 174-4.
Once again, though, the runs piled up as we tried every one of our six regular bowlers. The batsmen were so secure that I didn’t want to risk an untried bowler, but did use some new combinations; while Carol and I were bowling Vicus held a catch off my slower ball: 268-5.
As they approached 300, I finally felt that I should shoulder the blame for giving them the winning runs, so returned with Vicus – and immediately made two breakthroughs (which would at least earn us a couple of points if we lost): 301-6 and 305-7. Sadly, though, that was as far as we went, as they reached 320-7, and we lost by three wickets.
The league table is over at the club website. You will see there are new league leaders, Marsh Marigolds having lost their match. We have slipped to fifth place, but all is not lost yet, although it is perhaps less likely now that we can actually win the league; promotion is still possible (we are only 24 points behind second place – with 20 for a win, things can soon change).
