Report by Daniel Mortlock:
After a glorious week's sun the skies blackened on Friday, presumably in response to the fact that a Test match was being played elsewhere in the country. There were a few spots of rain in the morning, but by the time we gathered at Emmanuel the conditions were perfect. Today's opposition were the undefeated Cokenach -- they'll clearly win the league, but, after last week's disappointing defeat, we were well up for the challenge of inflicting their first defeat of the season.
Cokenach invited us to bat, and we started well, Tony Desimone (20) in particular scoring quickly, but soon there was the all-too-familiar collapse that saw us slump to 69/5 after 22 overs. A partnership was needed, and, to the surprise of not too many, it came from Andy Owen (a careful 36) and Rod Dennis (a more aggresive 49). They put on 85 for the 6th wicket before Rod decided he didn't want to buy his team-mates a jug. There was a fear that there might be another collapse, but the bottom of the order kept the runs coming, and we ended on a most credible 179/9, having scored at about 8 an over for the last 10.
As if to reward this performance, tea was corn-free, although it's not clear that the ``salmon paste'' was a great improvement. So the inevitable 7/10 there, and there was talk of Rog Shelley providing next week's refreshments, which should ensure the cornless turds continue to flow.
Coming out to bowl Rog quickly won GPB 80 from Phil by holding a sequence of high catches . . . but unfortunately this was just the warm-up, and not the result of a rash of poor shots by the opposition. The Cokenach openers looked quite at home with the line-and-length stuff we usually deliver, and so Andy Owen (0/13) and Daniel Mortlock (1/27) turned to wrist spin, which resulted in a few rash shots, and a classic leggie's wicket, a superb slips catch being held by Arnie Garside. Cokenach were kept to 41/1 after the first 12 overs and the game was nicely balanced when . . . it started to rain, and rain hard. After some on-again off-again attempts to restart, it began coming down in fucketbu-- er, bucketfulls, and that was that. Game over.
We could certainly enthuse about the upset victory that might have been (although Cokenach would still have been close favourites to get the runs), but it would have been more fun to actually push the issue out on the field. Still, at least it meant we could get to the Granta before the student rush . . .