Report by Cam Petrie:
In the wake of the record temperatures of earlier in the week (38.7 degrees C recorded at Cambridge Botanical Gardens on Thursday), forecasts predicted rain from10 pm on Friday until mid-afternoon on Saturday, prompting much intra-team, and inter-captain emailing about the likelihood of a game. We agreed that we would like to make a "call" at 11am as it looked pretty unlikely that we would get a complete game in, but by then it became clear that Haslingfield wanted to play, no matter what. At the prospect of a lot of wasted time and effort, Daniel Mortlock wisely opted to stay put in London while those of us in Cambridge loaded up gear in the drissle and headed west in disgruntled fashion.
In an email to Daniel sent at about noon Cam Petrie noted: "It has actually been properly raining for about 2 hours, and there is standing water on the ground everywhere. Forecasts are all in accord that it is going to rain until 3pm, and then after a bit of a break more or less all the way through until tomorrow", and then speculated "Whereas we don't really mind, I have learned through talking to captains of other teams that the newish points structure means that teams at the top of the table are keen to get as many points as possible even out of abandoned games. I reckon Haslingfield they will want to bowl first and put us in on a wet track in the hope of getting 5 bonus points for the wickets."
In response Dan pointed out that: "The old league rules meant that teams with high enough averages to guarantee promotion (or whatever) would cancel games near the end of the season pre-emptively to protect their position. This was a real problem, so the league changed their rules; but the law of unintended consequences now means the opposite problem that we're dealing with today."
It would be wrong to say that Romsey are non-plussed about such things, but I think accurate to say that we are decidedly less-plussed that most. This was emphasised by the fact that soon after arriving at Haslingfield, numerous opposition players and their captain (deliberately carrying a closed umbrella) enthusiatically walked around the outfield while Romsey were mostly seen huddling in the pavilion staying out of the rain. It was well and truly hammered home when Faruk was forced into an argument with Haslingfield's Clive, who started to loudly insist something along the lines that we were wasting time, being foolish etc., by not being willing to gear up and head out into the rain at the same time that Andy and the oppo captain were in the middle of agreeing to shorten the game to 35 overs, wait for the rain to stop, remove the covers, and then let the ground dry out before actually trying to start. Faruk's plea that Clive "Just stop and listen to what they are talking about" only resulted in more chuntering.
Eventually a toss was had, which Romsey won, and Haslingfield were put in to bat. Starting an hour late at about 14:30pm, Romsey's openers Vibhu Tewary (1/27 off 7 overs) and Stephan van Eeden (1/19 off 7 overs) were shown that it wasn't wise to give the Haslingfield openers any width before they were both able to get something out of the pitch and the conditions. Vibhu drew an under edge that Cam managed to hold onto at 'keeper and Stephan bowling the self-descibed "best ball I have bowled all year" got one to start going down leg and end up hitting the top of off to clean up their number 3. We could have had the other opener as well, as Stephan drew a lofted drive to Andy at cover which was still going up when it hit his upstretched left hand and ricocheted to safety.
With Haslingfield at 36/2 at the end of the tenth over, a double bowling change saw Catherine (2/28 off 3 overs) and Andy Owen (3/21 off 7 overs) come on to change the pace. In principle this worked a treat, drawing various lofted mis-hits, but unfortunately these all went to hand and were grassed, fell short of scurrying fielders or fell safe in empty space. Frustratingly, several of these were to the Haslingfield opener who went on to bat until the last ball of the innings, but more on that in a moment. While Catherine was soon hit out of the attack, Andy managed to bowl the Haslingfield number 4 just before drinks. This was the earlier mentioned Clive, who had taken a leg guard, but stood like George Bailey with his front foot in front of middle and proceeded to pad up to Andy and escape a string of extremely close LBW calls before a quicker one hit the stumps and took the benefit of the doubt out of the equation.
Faruk Kara (0/31 off 5 overs) soon joined the attack and managed to tighten things up bowling in tandem initially with Stephan, and then Robin Eddington (0/35 off 6 overs) returning for his first Romsey game for two seasons. Haslingfield set about building a solid partnership in these middle overs, which was only broken in the thirty-third over, after their surviving opener had started to hit out to and over the boundary. One of these shots was a huge straight hit off Robin that ended up in the vegetation, and resulted in chuntering from Clive again, who was heard loudly complaining that by looking for the ball we were wasting time, ruining the chance of a result etc. Rather than run off to help find it, he ran into the pavilion, collected several balls, and then ran out to hand them to the umpire. The idiocy of this stance was shown by the fact that it only took about three minutes in total to find the ball, and this occured about 20 seconds after the umpire was given the handful of spare balls. Clive also thankfully stopped moaning after it was pointed out that he had had his chance(s) this innings, and so should just shut up and stay in the pavilion. Coming on at the death, Andy managed to break the partnership by getting another one through the gate to bowl the Haslingfield number 5 and then bowled a devastatingly slow, slow ball for the last ball of their innings that drew a huge swipe from the surviving opener that found only air, and the ball hit the base of middle (and produced a victorious cackle from Andy). Despite all the ridiculous fuss about time and time wasting, Romsey had gotten through our 35 overs in the lightning time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Coming out to bat at 5:10pm in the darkening gloom (and not far after the normal second innings start time despite the 1-hour delay), Cam (20* off 30 balls) and Kshitij Sabnis (0 off 3 balls) got to face a zippy medium pacer and quickly saw the benefits/disadvantages of bowling cross seam, with Kshitij letting a few go through before he had one pitch and seam away to take the top of off. The looping leggie bowling from the other end encouraged Cam to get to the pitch of the ball and work on his sweep, but Nathan Wright (0 of 5 balls) unfortunately missed one and was stumped. Cam and Robin (6 off 6 balls) started to rebuild, but Cam unfortunately belted one back to the looper only to have him deflect the ball down so quickly that Robin was caught outside his crease, and he chose to walk as the umpire was unsighted.
At 12/3 after 4 overs, it looked as though things could be both short and not at all sweet, but thankfully Cam and Vibhu (11* off 30 balls) knuckled down and adopted a risk free approach (not dissimilar to that used against Madingley a few weeks ago). This time things wasn't entirely successful, as the first change bowler drew a series of edges and 'shots' that saw the ball beat the keeper, beat an unmoving Clive at first slip, and basically go straight through the hands of a flailing third slip who couldn't move fast enough to take that chance.
Perhaps inevitably, the rain returned, and taking advantage of the relatively small number of loose balls, Cam and Vibhu had crept us up to 38/3 in the twelfth over when the umpires asked whether they would like to continue. Opting to carry on for a few more overs, they got the two singles to get us to 40/3 and a batting point before they decided that enough was enough and jogged off to get dry and see the wry smiles of Andy and company waiting in the pavilion. A twenty minute wait only served to show that the rain wasn't going to stop, so we called it a day and both teams went home with a reasonably fair share of the point spoils - 10 for Haslingfield and 8 for us.