Saturday 16th June 2007.

I have to say, I’m a bit cheesed off. I don’t think the team played to its full potential, and some of you were, frankly, just messing around. To be fair, I hadn’t picked the strongest team (on paper at least) this time, as I wanted to give the three players I dropped last week a chance. Even so, I think many minds were on the end-of-season party, rather than the match.

I will think long and hard about this, before deciding how many of you I allow to join our world tour, which starts in July. I point no fingers, but I am sure some sore heads this morning will tell their own story.

This was the last match of the league season, and we really needed to win it. That became apparent when, in a series of ’phone calls before play started, I discovered that every other game in our division had been abandoned, before a ball was bowled, because the pitches were waterlogged. This means that each team received 15 points, putting the current leaders, Touch and Go on 274. If we won this match, the 20 points we receive would put us on 275 points – and so we would win the title by one point.

Fortunately, the care and attention paid by our groundpserson had paid off, and our wicket was eminently playable, in between the showers.

I lost the toss, and we were put in to bat. You may recall my request for maximum effort, and my hope that we would score over 300 runs, to daunt the opposition. I also decided to put my money where my mouth was, lead from the front and open the batting myself, with Jona. We started off briskly enough, but sadly Jona was given out LBW when the score was only 21-1.

Richard and I got stuck in, and put us back on track, with a half-century for me, and our score moving beyond the hundred mark, before Richard too fell LBW: 101-2.

Sadly, only a few balls later I was caught behind: 104-3.

Our vice-captain took over the scoring, knocking-off a quick twenty, before she was bowled: 139-4.

Realdoc had been pestering me for the last fortnight with stories of her batting prowess, so I moved her up the order to no. 6. She rather let herself down, being caught in the slips soon after going in: 143-5.

Lisa stayed in slightly longer, before lobbing a gentle catch to silly mid on: 155-6.

Steg, who had been slowly building an innings, now made a rash swing, mistimed and was caught and bowled: 180-7.

Carol was caught behind: 192-8.

This left our fast bowlers, who have previously both opened, and from whom I expected a steady and responsible innings. Tom repaid my confidence by going at the bowling like a bull at a china shop, and duly sliced the ball to the slips: 192-9.

We were depending on Ivy and Vicus to at least push the score over 200, but sadly even that hope was dashed when Ivy was given out LBW: 196-10.

Tea seemed quite a lively affair, even though it tasted like ashes in my mouth. I suspect some of you had got at the punch which Ziggi brought.

Tom and I opened the attack, with our mixture of pace and guile; it wasn’t until his fourth over that Tom made the first breakthrough, a nick being held by Richard: 13-1.

Tom’s next ball took the middle stump out of the ground: 13-2.

In his 8^th over (just before the change to our second pair) Tom got a third wicket, again clean bowled: 31-3.

Vicus and Realdoc did nothing in their spell, so we turned to Steg and Ivy. Steg succeeded in getting an edge to carry to the slips, where a very surprised Lisa held onto the catch: 84-4.

With the score moving well beyond 100, I returned to our openers, Tom achieving another edge to the slips, held this time by Realdoc: 127-5.

Tom got his five-fer (his best-ever bowling performance, incidentally) with another nick, held by Richard: 149-6.

Our second pair achieved a wicket at last, when Realdoc’s spin ball finally moved enough to dislodge the bails; 173-7.

They needed 24 runs to win, we needed to get three more wickets.

In a last desperate attempt to get those wickets, I asked Tom and Steg, our most aggressive pair, to have a go. Finally, with the scores tied (and the league title thus lost to us) Steg bowled his man: 196-8.

The next ball went for 4, and the match was lost.

Match details, and the final league table, are shown below. As you will see, we finished a creditable third.

Creditable, that is, if you don’t think winning is important.

Thanks for those who organised the party, band, barbeque etc after the match. Sorry if I sat in the corner for most of the evening, looking a bit pensive.