For the last few years Romsey has scheduled a warm-up game against Remnants CC, the idea being to ease into the season with a friendly match against the mid-week club of which many of us are also members. Certainly a nice idea, but most of the time it seems the weather has been the winner and, with today being uniformly cold, windy and overcast, another wash-out seemed likely. But not today -- instead we played through rain and wind to stretch our legs for the first time this season.
Russell Woolf managed the season's first brilliancy off the season's second ball, using both feet and hands to run out sometime Romsey kamikaze pilot John Gull. After that Daniel Mortlock (1/5) managed to bowl one of the Remnants 'round his legs before Joe White (1/14) made the use of the near darkness to scare the shit out of their middle order. He finshed one over by bowling their best batsmen, the relevant stump left leaning back in the mud, at which point the players left the ground as the rain got heavier and heavier.
Miraculously it was only ten minutes before the game resumed, this time with Romsey batting. Remnants was a little weak in the bowling department, and Roy Page (15) and Russell Woolf (26, including his first six in a decade) scored freely, despite having to bat on the stickiest of wickets. At 51/1 after 6 eight-ball overs we were cruising: half way to our target at the half-way point, with plenty of batting still to come. But then we suffered the season's first Romsey Collapse (TM), slumping to 6/62 at the hands of the aforementioned Mr Gull (4/20).
With only Tom Jordan still to bat it seemed we'd once again failed to chase a small target, but Andy Page (15*) and Paul Jordan (20*) kept their heads and accumulated runs just quickly enough to keep us in touch. We needed 33 off the last three overs, and then 14 off the last eight balls. There were a few scampered extras -- and an absurd three after some overthrow mayhem -- but when Paul (who had thus-far scored exclusively in rather careful singles) was left needing a six off the final ball just to tie, it seemed it was all in vain. The final delivery looked pretty decent -- fast, and tight into his pads -- but Paul just lent across and flicked the ball over the square leg boundary with out any apparent bother at all. The rest of the batting team streamed onto the field, and no doubt we would have chaired him off if we were more athletic, but, for a few moments at least, this warm-up tie was better than any victory.