By virtue of our four consecutive wins we'd climbed from the bottom of the league to second over the last month and today came up against league leaders Hardwick/Shepreth II. With both teams having lost just the two games today's winners would go top of the table, at least for a little while. However it's also relevant (if unpleasant) to point out that, when we played Hardwick/Shepreth earlier in the season, they'd beaten us by over a hundred runs when we capitulated for 70 in response to their mediocre total of 177/9. Surely we'd be able to do better than that today, but would we be able to win?
As usual we took to the field first and kept the opposition pretty well in check for the first half of the innings. Once again several chances (three in the space of about ten balls at one stage) went begging, although the lucky batsmen were either dismissed or forced to retire hurt not long afterwards, so not a great deal was lost there. And on an ironic note stand-in 'keeper Tony Desimone took the sharpest of chances off the pad off one of the Hardwick batsmen during his tidy incumbency behind the stumps. By the time the opening attack of Andy Owen (1/30) and Daniel Mortlock (1/39) came off Hardwick/Shepreth were 80/4 after 20-odd overs with the new batsmen not looking at all comfortable. However they rode their luck and stayed together for the rest of the innings, compiling an unbeaten 112 run partnership. Once they'd gotten their eye in we never really looked like getting a wicket, despite the large number of runs off thick edges. Nonetheless the bowlers largely kept their line and Neal Baker (1/46), George Speller (1/38, the wicket coming about due to great work by Andy at silly mid-off after George had softened up the batsmen with a few beamers), Phil Marshall (0/14) and Paul Henderson (0/14) never let the batsmen score at much more than five an over. This was also down to a lot of hard work done by the outfielders, with the ball seeming to follow Arnie Garside and Rich Savage wherever they went.
At tea some of us got fed grapes by scantily-clad maidens, but most of the team retreated inside to find out ``if the sarnies were any better than last week'' and continue the relentless hunt for fillings. The general verdict was that a slight improvement had been effected, leading to a 6.5/10 assessment today.
Refueled and full of talk of ``only five an over'', we set about acquiring the 193 needed for victory at a cracking pace. Rich Savage (21, including three textbook boundaries through point, cover and mid-off in one over) and Phil Marshall (14) combined for a 30 run 2nd wicket partnership at a run-a-ball, but their departure saw a classic middle order collapse once again. At 100-ish/6 we needed 90 runs off 18 overs -- not extreme scoring, but much easier with six or seven wickets in hand than just the four. There was still hope, though, with Neal Baker (48 and batting well after a slightly loose start) and Daniel Mortlock (18) taking the score to 130 without further loss, but after Neal's departure we lost our last few for just 15 runs and the match by a pretty decent margin.
In the end this was probably a fair result, with Hardwick/Shepreth II having their noses out in front for most of the day, although we were also left to rue the cruel luck that saw three of us play the ball onto our stumps rather than getting runs off inside edges. But whilst we can't make very strong claims to being the best team in the league there's no reason not to think we're not second best, and if we're still in that place at the end of the season it will once again mean a chance to have a tilt at the big(ger) boys in Division 2. And who knows -- if we hold our catches and block a few more of the good balls we might even give them a run for their money . . .