The more experienced, thankfully, were at hand to raise the spirits. The first was Phil Goodliffe, whose wife Eve had been up since 6am putting the finishing touches to our lunches and teas. As Andy Taylor and self limbered up before opening, the Goodliffes pulled up in front of the pavilion and a glorious orgy of quiches, cheese, fruit, salads, and cakes passed in procession from car to pavilion.  Our minds must have still been on the food as 22 balls later Taylor major, Taylor mi, and self were back in the pavilion, bowed, with the V&A 12 for 3. Chris M-T, a Jesmond Jaguar of old and today moonlighting for his chums, moved the ball sideways off a length to take the first wicket, while Eccles who was looking handy from the other end took the second. The third wicket saw Rob Taylor gallantly fall on his sword, having been forced into a run that wasn’t on and dismissed with a direct hit from fine leg. The potential biographies of those who lose their wicket early possess the mythic quality of headless Greek statues – though in the case of the V&A, our statues tend to stand contrapposto with a bit of premature pot-belly and a cigarette in one hand. In any case, there was not time for delineations on what might have been.

Constantine, now needing to score enough for two having run Rob out, was joined by Vin Grantham at the crease. They first weathered the remainder of the openers’ spells, trying to exercise caution as our total entered the thirties. Around this point, operatic overtures begun drifting up the valley from a neighbouring horticulturalist jamboree. Seemingly possessed by the libretti of Mozart and Puccini our two Don Giovannis threw caution to the wind and their hands after the ball, taking our score into the eighties with a succession of boundaries. Memorable among these despatches were a beautifully timed Grantham drive and a long-hanging straight six from Constantine. And yet, like their libertine forbear, both Constantine (41) and Grantham (18) succumbed to their excesses a few overs later and were caught out.

A middle-and-lower order spasm followed, no doubt brought on by the change to a steel band on the stage across the valley, leaving us 121 for 9 at lunch. The quality of the meal before us has been hinted at already. However good it may have seemed in prospect all those hours ago could not have prepared us for the odyssey of Epicurean delight that followed. Plates were piled high with sausage rolls, chicken, mango, colourful salad, a pleasing mixture of cheeses, pickled walnuts, chutneys and countless other treats our performance had not, with the mentioned exceptions deserved. Our thanks must go to Eve and Phil, who even provided handwritten cards to guide our weary eyes over the buffet.

Reinvigorated, Tom Bird and Adam Jacot sauntered back out to the middle to protect the final wicket and help get our score into the regions of respectability. Chatter from the balcony concurred that 150 could be defended, and agreed that Jacot and Bird were good men to turn to in a crisis. Tom finished not out for 27 when Adam was trapped leg-before-wicket on 14, but their partnership had set the Jaguars a target of 153 to win.

Nieboer opened with a maiden. From the other end Jonkers found the batsman’s edge with his second ball and Grantham took the catch at first slip with a burrowing dive forwards. Boon, who watched this from the other end, was unbowed and put together a run of driven boundaries. Nieboer bowled Stubbs in 7th over, a wicket maiden, Jonkers had Wheeler in the 10th and Rob Taylor trapped Ziegler leg-before in the next. A collapse seemed possible. Andy Jones pulled a jaffer out the bag, finding Boon’s outside edge with reverse swing, the ball ending in the safe hands of stand-in keeper Andy Taylor. His next delivery, and CMT’s first, again contorted to find the bat’s edge, but this time beat Taylor’s glove and found the fine leg boundary.

Nevertheless, with the Jags 68 for 5 our odds looked good, with vivacious bowling to come from Jacot, and the prospect of Jonkers and Nieboer re-entering the attack. Mounsey-Thear (33*) and his partner Burton-Brown (40), however, were steadfast and, having put on eighty-odd for the fifth wicket, moved the game out of sight and toward a victory well-deserved.

And so, having feasted like sultans all afternoon we arrived at the garden of The Golden Ball for a more just reckoning – a single plate of chips and Constantine telling my employer, at some length, about the evening at University when I spent three quarters of an hour talking to a cello case under the illusion it was a female undergraduate.

Tom Ayling