Report by Daniel Mortlock:
With two matches of the 2018 season to go, Romsey's entered familiar territory: win or be relegated. And, as often seems to happen in this situation, we found ourselves travelling to Parker's Piece to take on an NCI team, in this case their thirds. But more interesting than our opposition was our own team: it was mainly regulars, but we once again had to draw on the CCA's Additional Players list, today getting the services of Jevon Harrison and Aditya Jain, both from Abbots Ripton, as well as introducing a new player initially listed only as ANO . . . but who was revealed to be Andy Owen, making his first appearance after breaking his collarbone in June. With plenty of bowling and the pitch the same emerald green as the outfield we of course wanted to bowl first, which we got to do after a correct call by Daniel Mortlock, who was captaining (and not Andy, who was definitely not captaining, and exerted no influence whatsoever on field placings or bowling changes).
Daniel hence got to immediately continue his love affair with the Piece (16 wickets at 12.13 in 7 previous league games), sending down 26 deliveries before conceding a run - although the last of these would have broken the spell but for Huw Davies at mid off taking a diving catch off a well-hit drive. In the end Daniel finished with fantasy figures of 8 overs, 5 maidens, 2/5, the 5th most economical spell in club history. Implicit in this is that it was, for once, our opponents who were having a dot-fest, the star here being S. Duby, who failed to score from 47 of the 53 balls he ended up facing. His innings was ended by Adi Vaidyanathan (1/18) who, along with Ferdi Rex (also 1/18, a coincidence from which he seemed to draw surprising pleasure), consolidated our early advantage, NCI limping along at 2 an over up to drinks.
The game was then interrupted by a freak meteorological phenomenon in water fell from the sky. All the players ran from the field seeking shelter, with some of the younger members of both teams (not that either was exhibiting a strong youth policy) fearing that this was truly the end of days. Fortunately there were experienced old hands present who were able to reassure everyone that this was just "rain", and that it used to be quite common, and certainly presented no physical threat. The same could not be said for the guy in full army fatigues who had been watching the game and now came over to us to offer sustenance in the form of cakes and juice boxes - these were politely refused, after which some shared eye-rolling said all that was needed. Not that "camo-man" was the strangest of today's spectators. There were the usual tourists wandering across the ground (one of whom wanted special dispensation so that she could get close enough to take a photo), but there was also "dancing man", who spent most of the second innings a few feet inside the square boundary having an animated convseration with the Universe.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves here, as the initial order of business was to complete the first innings. Despite the heaviness of the downpour - enough to bring NIC II's game at Fitz to a premature end - actually seemed to make no difference to the match at all, the pitch and ground largely unaffected. There was a bit of sliding around in the field - we possibly should set up a crowdfunding campaign to get Stephan some spikes - but more important was that we took pretty much all the catches that came our way: the Adityas (Adityae?) managed three between them (2 to Adi 1; 1 to Adi 2) and Jevon, keeping wicket, managed a nifty leg-side take from an attempted lap sweep. Pride of place, however, goes to Andy, who took a catch he rated as "one of my top five" at short cover: the batsman smashed a full ball from Faruk Kara (2/15) low and flat to Andy's right and he managed to dive down and take it in his right hand, all while deliberately avoiding doing anything with his still fragile left side. Not that he was done there, as he also came on for an experimental bowl and bamboozled the batsmen to the tune of 2/16 from his 7 overs (hence continuing his own love affair with the Piece, his previous 9 matches here having yielded 15 wickets at 16.20).
This left NCI on 73/8 after 36 overs, but their tailenders came back strongly, hitting 30 more runs to take the final total to 103/9. It mightn't sound too imposing a target on paper (or screen), but the combination of the tricky pitch and slow outfield - the NCI batsmen managed just two fours all innings - meant that it wasn't going to just be a case of knocking off the runs and heading to the pub for an early pint.
There was certainly no danger of that after we slumped to 14/3 in the 6th over, at which point NCI were probably winning for the first time all day. Their bowlers were all over us, generating lots of half-chances and near misses, but Jevon Harrison (30 off 53 balls) and Marcelino Gopal (24 off 78 balls) managed to stay in and, with help from an eventual 20 wides, get us moving steadily towards our target. In the end they put on 51 runs together - the second biggest partnership in the game was 26 - after which we were once again in the ascendancy . . .
. . . only to start losing wickets at just the right rate to keep NCI interested. Daniel Mortlock (7 off 14 balls) and Stephan van Eeden (6 off 7 balls) made small, if vital, lower order contributions: both were dismissed with the target half what it was when they'd come in - although this is not recommended as a long-term strategy. Fortunately Adi Vaidyanathan (1* off 1 ball) and Faruk Kara (1* off 5 balls), along with one final wide, avoided Zeno's paradox, the winning run rather appropriately coming in the form of a scratchy edge through the slips.
The win took us to 154 league points with one game left, just 6 fewer than NCI III who are 5th out of 9 teams. Unfortunately, the two teams below us, Fulbourn and Thriplow, both have games in hand, so we'll almost certainly finish up in the relegation zone unless we beat Mill Green next week.