RICHARD WOOLHOUSE [SKIPPPER] PICKED UP Sarah’s lunch [she thought the weather too iffy to join us] and was few minutes late, so I tossed up with their affable skipper, James, which I won and elected to bat. My reasoning was that the forecast was for rain, so I thought at least we’d wallop a few before a truncated day. I also proposed a 30-over match. This was queried in both dressing rooms, but as my meteorological calculations suggested rain at 4.42 p.m., and it actually fell at 4.43 – a minute after the game finished – I felt vindicated.

Our dressing room thought it was barmy to elect to bat first on a sodden but drying pitch. But there are other factors, like being able to help set out lunch etc. Anyway Sean and Nick Emley volunteered to open and faced some very tight bowling. They struggled to get runs on a pudding of a pitch and were both out forcing the pace. We were about 20 for 2 after 8 overs when Dennis and Martin came in. Dennis turned the innings round with characteristic venom, hitting one immense 6 over mid-on and scoring 7 fours. Curiously for such a powerful man he hit 17 singles. Proof perhaps of the sodden outfield, as well as his inability to run 2. When he was out for a potentially match-winning 52 we had about 100 on the board. Richard joined Martin and the two continued to score briskly but were out caught [for 17 and 13 respectively] in identical fashion, the ball scooped to mid-off, victims of the slow pitch. It was no accident that the first 7 wickets were all caught. Richard had offered a couple of easy catches, one – dropped at point – would have made Linthwaite blush.

Our innings rather petered out despite some flourishes from Sunil [13], Tom Bird [7], Adam [9] and Peter [5 – all in singles]. Tom felt particularly disappointed as he had faced some very indifferent bowling. But he had his boy to distract him, as well as the temptation of a long hop which was his undoing. I had padded up as 12th man which was significant later. Due to an admin error we were 12 and I had agreed with their skip that their lowest scorer would bat twice.

After Sarah’s excellent roast beef lunch, in sunshine, Midnight went in and started quite slowly against the accurate bowling of Dennis and Sean. So accurate in fact that Midnight were soon 19 for 6! One catch by Richard at slip, high and behind, off a faster one to an excellent left-hander, was truly memorable. Sean got two other wickets both bowled [his stats were, I think, 3 for 9]. Dennis got 3 wickets in this spell, two bowled and one skier caught imperiously by Sean, whose fielding and bowling was making him a candidate for ‘Man of the Match’.

But then, as so often happens, two batsmen dug in. A 50 by a chap who hadn’t played for 10 years was remarkable for grit and power and intelligence. And their skipper was a class apart, an accomplished batsmen who could be forceful or elegant or both. He was eventually out LBW to Adam, who promptly bowled the next man. They were 100 for 8 and you would have favoured the V&A. Particularly when their top scorer was out [played on to Dennis] and Martin bowled a big-hitter middle stump. But a somewhat loose over from James Nixey, in which his customary line and length was lacking, and some dropped catches [difficult chance to Peter at slip, missed opportunities by Martin and Richard] and some wayward fielding – from Nixey of all people – saw them edge towards the target with 20 to get in 20 balls. Peter had a simple chance to run a bloke out, he was 15 feet from the wicket and could have thrown it underarm to the keeper but chose instead to roll it slowly along the ground wide of the wicket.

Then…controversy. Dennis had been brought back early in a gamble to finish the match and seemed to have won the game by bowling their 11th man. But we had agreed to bat 12. Richard had not been a party to the agreement and when politely informed that their supposed last man was actually the penultimate batsman declared that our 12th man – Bird N – had not in fact batted. Rupert, and Martin, pointed out that Bird was padded up and would have gone in, and that anyway the agreement stood. Linthwaite complained rather loudly that ‘their 12th man is their big opener while ours was Nicky Bird’. I know what he meant and a Christmas card will not now be sent.

Richard’s bowling spell had been tight and he gave nothing away from his first two balls to their butch opener, who could well have finished the game with three whacks. But instead he chose to hit the third ball to Richard and run. Richard picked it up and calmly, from 4 yards, threw the wicket down, underarm. We had won a splendid game, transformed into an exciting finish by their robust fight back after early disaster. Richard’s captaincy and bowling changes had proved crucial.

After the game it saddens me to report that there was a meeting of the Misuse of Substances Committee to look into allegations that certain players had been guilty of enjoying Class B substances before the end of the game, affecting performance. Happily the Committee rejected the allegation after considering Richard’s sterling and crucial slip catch, which compensated for his hopeless and confused positioning when offered a dolly of a chance at mid-wicket off Peter. That he had said of his slip catch that ‘he knew nothing about it’ was dismissed as modesty rather than evidence of befuddlement.

On May 15 we are playing Robbie Lawson’s team of youthful cricketers. Our average age on Saturday was 53, and it shows in the field. It would be nice to bring itdown a bit.