7th July 2007 - 3rd XI V Abingdon Vale

At last a proper cricket day. Opening from the farm end, Gary found both pace and bounce on the excellently prepared sixth-use strip. From the village end the ageless, the timeless, Clive was soon into the groove.

The Vale openers, however, resisted without much ambition until Kamran was brought into the attack; a well directed slower ball giving him a deserved c&b. Kamran continued to pose problems with good length and direction and Andy, standing up, took a fine keeper’s catch as a firm left handed nick moved away from him.

Calling “Gary” loudly enough for the whole village to know who was designated, the skipper then gave Clive his first wicket by taking one that nobody else had even thought of moving for and the bowler, not for the first time, began steadily to work through the opposition. It was all quite tame. Sam enlivened things with a Lineker-like dive and header at the near post, Ryan took a good catch in front of the (unpainted) sight screen, Archie put himself in the right position for the anticipated silly-mid-off catch but then waved it by and Clive went on taking wickets.

Untried bowlers began to show anxiety. Archie wheeled an arm over. The club Chair, making a welcome appearance on the field of play, started going through his limbering up exercises but the skipper decided to cut off their expectations by bringing himself back on to finish things off. Clive’s 6-21 was fine bowling but Kamran’s tidy spell, aided by a solid fielding display, had been equally important in keeping things tight all through.

81 did not seem much to aim for especially when a series of generous full tosses allowed Ryan to post 14 in one over. The Vale turned to left arm spin and the club started hitting against it. Ryan practised getting out one ball and perfected the act the next, Archie hoiked one up to mid-on and then Baines narrowly avoided following him.

Enough was enough. With a series of classical back foot cuts and drives, played with the spin, Bainesy showed how it should be done, rapidly pushing the score along. At the other end Gary, brutal and effective, struck a number of firm boundaries and we won so early that the bar was not open to celebrate the victory. Luckily the Blacks Head, which had earlier provided a top quality tea, proved made of sterner stuff.

The senior pro, putting his failure to score down to the quality of the wicket rather than his horrid cross-bat play, refused to produce the full match fee and went home for catching practice.