Report by Daniel Mortlock:
On the Hottest Day Of The Year (TM) we once again found ourselves waiting in the Trinity College changing room, desperate for Andy to return from the toss with the news that we would be batting first. We were once again disappointed: the Longstowe captain called correctly, and so we headed out into the field talking not about taking wickets, but instead about the promised land of "drinks at 15 overs". There was even a semi-serious suggestion of drinks every 10 overs, and a perhaps less serious "exhaustion mitigation" scheme in which the periods betweens successive breaks would be halved, which would have had drinks at 16 overs, 24 overs, 28 overs, 30 overs, 31 overs, etc., although that would have meant another break mid-way through the 32nd over, then drinks every ball, and finally mid-delivery refreshments with, say, the the off-side fielders being rehydrated in response to a pull shot, or third-man and fine-leg being tended to in response to a drive. (The wicket-keeper would presumably be left to expire in the middle.)
The general sense of resource preservation seeped through into our play which, while not terrible, had a certain raggedness to it that can presumably be put down to mild heat exhaustion. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the only person who seemed happy with the situation was Daniel Mortlock, who resolutely kept his jumper on and opened up with his best spell of the season: 6 overs, 3 maidens, 2/9. Daniel's second wicket came with the help of another hot climate native, Stephan van Eeden using his height to pluck a well-hit cut from the air; but otherwise it was slow going.
From 24/2 Longstowe recovered thanks to obdurate batting in which elegance took a back seat to the more earthy virtues of sensible shot selection and decisive punishment of bad balls. The surviving opener had a habit of stepping to the offside and then playing around his pad, a technical flaw which should have of the fatal variety, but in fact provided him with a second line of defense, as the presence of yet another umpire who "doesn't usually umpire" (his own words) seemed to make it pretty clear that LBWs were off the menu.
At 104/3 with 70 balls still remaining we were verging on losing control of the innings, but following the second drinks break we made a superb comeback, largely dominating the rest of Longstowe's batting line-up. Ferdi Rex (1/34), Stephan van Eeden (2/24), Eli Ellwood (1/26 on loan from Harlton as an Additional Player), Andy Owen (1/23) and Daniel (3/18 in the end) all got wickets, with Stephan's second spell of 4 overs, 1 maiden, 2/12 a particular highlight as he switched between off-cutters and outswingers seemingly at will. Stephan could thank at least one of his wickets on the the Cambridge and Oxford women's tennis teams, members of which seemed to be making a continuous stream of trips from the courts to the pavilion and back. While perhaps not strictly unpleasant, it was incredibly annoying, as no amount of shouted explanations from our fielders managed to stop them delaying the game by walking in front of the sight screen. It was a strange that they were so oblivious given that professional tennis matches can be halted even when spectators are moving around; but in the end we became resigned to the absurdity of it, the highlight being when one player seemed to be far enough away for Stephan to start his run up, at which point she also decided to accelerate to a jog, forcing Stephan to abort. The batsman, still possibly shaking his head in disbelief, was bowled next ball. Indeed, all but one of these late-innings wickets were bowled (which gave further backing to the sense that we'd previously been denied by over-zealous pad use), but the one that fell to a catch was a mini-story in itself.
Richard Rex has clearly been out top out-field catcher for some years now, an assertion backed up by the numbers: his grab today, his 47th in league games, took him to fourth on the most catches list and, perhaps more relevantly, his record of taking 0.48 catches a match is a good 20% better than any other outfielder. And so when one batsman mis-hit a big drive off Ferdi's bowling there was only one possible outcome: Richard made good ground to the ball, got both hands around it . . . and it somehow popped out and fell to ground. There was a general sense of disbelief, although Richard himself said that he wasn't quite balanced when he got to the ball and so it wasn't so surprising he hadn't held on. Never mind, becuase in the final over of the innings Richard was presented with the easist imaginable chance for redemption, as the ball was hit straight to him at mid-off: Richard didn't even have to move this time, and had the relaxed look of someone taking a throw as the ball is returned to the bowler. When the ball popped out this time the disbelief was his own, and seemed to be more visceral: how is such a thing even possible? Lest we start jumping to conclusions about it being the end of days, these two cosmic anomolies bracketed a much more characteristic effort: Longstowe's top scorer smacked Daniel back over his head for what would have been a six on many grounds; but Richard pelted around from long-on and held onto a superb catch that most of the rest of us would have dropped most of the time.
Tea duties once again fell to the Owens today, who showed that simplicity is a virtue: no more than the minimum attention was paid to the sandwiches; instead the focus was on things that were cold, wet and sweet (which should yield a good punchline if you can think of the right person). For the health-conscious there was a whole watermelon; and for the rest (all?) of us there were both iced-lollies and a mini-gelato service. Suddenly batting second didn't seem so bad afterall.
Our innings started off pretty slowly, as openers Cameron Petrie and Andrew Granville were initially watchful. This approach paid off soon enough, as both started to score more comfortably, making it to a healthy 51/0 at the 15-over drinks break. At this stage the heat started to have an effect on Andrew, who said he was almost hallucinating - which might also what was behind some of the attempted catches by the Longstowe fielders. These drops, in turn, might explain why some of their bowlers were getting tetchy, one losing his cool when Cam held up play to wipe off the sweat that had splashed onto his glasses after a wayward throw had clonked him on the helmet. Thankfully this seemed to be quickly resolved, rather than simmering into the sort of game-wrecking tension that we've endured in recent weeks. More importantly, both batsmen were now properly in, and completed our first century partnership of the year. This would suggest that at least one batsman got a half-century, but somehow Cam (46 off 73 balls) and Andrew (48 off 99 balls) fell just short as we suffered a mini-collapse that took us from 105/0 to 118/3.
More important than this sudden loss of wickets was that our scoring had been a little slow, and so at the end of the 32nd over we still needed 39 runs off 48 balls - hardly impossible, but a little tighter than we'd have liked with two new batsmen at the crease. The task of finishing things off fell to the Rexes, with Ferdi, Olly and Richard making up our middle order. Ferdi seemed a good bet to do it on his own, smashing a huge six and a couple of gloriously textbook fours, but he then made the mistake of playing back on a track that was now keeping worryingly low, his 22 off 23 balls being cut short by a bottom edge onto the stumps. Fortunately, we had Olly waiting to pick up where he left off, immediately playing with the sort of confidence that had seen him make 95 runs off 114 balls this season while being dismissed only once. In the end he hitting the winning runs with 2 overs remaining, his 26* off 22 balls pipping his brother in this episode of The Rex Factor, while Richard (1* off 2 balls) supervised the denoument.
That meant more ice creams, which for once felt earned, and the sort of balmly post-match sunny evening that makes league cricket worthwhile.