It was never going to be Babraham's day from the moment they turned up The Leys School's Latham Road ground, tossed the coin, elected to bat . . . and were then informed that they were actually in the wrong place, and that they were supposed to be at The Leys School's main ground on Trumpington Road. It's actually a pretty understandable mistake, and the sheer variety of Romsey ``home'' grounds only adds to the confusion, but by the time Babraham had arrived at the correct venue, lost the toss, and been inserted on a lively track, it's maybe no surprise that their batting crumbled.
Our efforts in the field can be summed up simply by giving the bowling figures: Andy Owen 9 overs, 4 maidens, 2/19; Marcelino Gopal 9.1 overs, 2 maidens, 2/18; Rog Shelley 10 overs, 4 maidens, 3/20; and Russell Woolf 10 overs, 2 maidens, 2/26. Add in three catches by Andy (two of which were blinders under the helmet at silly mid-off) and Tom Jordan's direct-hit run out, and maybe Babraham were lucky even to get to 90. We dominated the batsmen to such a degree that almost a third of the overs were maidens, and Shane Minett's tea was presumably wo(o)lfed down enthusiastically with a view to quickly knocking off the runs and retiring to the nearest pub.
Certainly it started out like that, as we raced to 72/2 with Roy Page (19, having come back after retiring hurt from a beamer that hit him in the head), John Gull (12), and Andy Page (an excellent 23) all batting well. With some 25 overs to score all of 19 runs (with 8 wickets in hand) there's just no way we could lose . . .
. . . and so Babraham promptly took 4 wickets for just 7 runs, and suddenly it was ``game on''. Or at least it would have been if not for Marcelino Gopal coming in and making a mockery of any such worries, smacking 10 runs from his first four balls to tie the scores. Sadly he didn't see the match through, but Rod Dennis (3*) and Andy Owen (0*) had only to scamper a cheeky bye to complete what was still a pretty comfortable victory.
We shouldn't have lost seven wickets chasing such a small target, but in the end the main thing was simply that we won, unlike our close failures against Thriplow and Audley End. If we'd won those two matches our season's ledger would have been four-all and we would be fifth or sixth; as it is we're in decidedly worse shape with just two wins and six losses, putting us seventh out of nine and well and truly in the relegation zone.