16/6/07 - 2nd XI V Oxford 3

Rain was in the air as Tim won the toss and invited Andy Smith, last week’s high scorer, to walk to the crease with him.

For once Willie was absent. The stand-in scorer was fully tested as the score raced to twenty in three overs; only one of which was from the bat. Seeing this munificence from the opposition (who finally rattled up a half century of extras) Andy elected to accept it and let them do the work. With Tim nurdling away at the other end we had a productive first hour opening stand before Andy was well caught at slip by the ageing Lawton-Smith.

Haynes decided not to trouble the scorer this day but Aviral had entirely other ideas and showed aggression from his first ball. After a rain break, Tim feebly patted one back to the bowler. His 72 had been a well put together knock in difficult conditions. Our attempt to strengthen the second eleven batting then produced a cunningly disguised weapon of mass destruction at 5. With Aviral in increasing pain, Stanners started clearing the ropes; but his adventure was just too brief.

At 215-4 we finished, in our rain restricted 44 overs, just one stan short of the final batting point. Aviral being polite enough to end three behind his skipper on 69*.

Yasir quickly claimed Picknett but after that there was little sign that the openers could make much headway until the team was, once again, treated to the Rattigan swoop. Fielding deep and wide enough at mid-off for even his Granny to think there might be a comfortable five, Tim came gracefully to the ball, alarmed the batsman into fatal hesitation on their way to even the first, and threw down the stumps.

We turned to two age old second eleven practices. Jim came on at the golf club end and the team started shelling catches. Seeing this Jim persuaded Phil to give him three successive lbw claims but could not quite break through a steady succession of run scoring bats. The score rose even as the wickets fell.

Scrivs came back to finish things off but, after five overs, was replaced by Andy Haynes who, against all previous evidence, delivered three catches. Ryan’s was followed by a caught and bowled and then the astonishingly overlooked George finally found the way to remind everyone he was on the field of play with a match-deciding catch on the mid-wicket boundary.

Oxford finished on 194-8. We had the first seventeen points in the bag. The other thirteen had, quite literally, slipped through our fingers.