Another glorious Cambridge afternoon -- so much so that there was even a bit of sunburn and sunstroke going around -- and another match on the most easterly of the Fitzwilliam pitches, this time against The Beehive.
The Beehive elected to bat first and, despite judicious management of bowlers and ends (to suit the short boundary), the presence of a right/left combination led to enough loose balls that the score was 24/0 after just 2 overs. But then our opening bowlers Paul Jordan (0/19) and Les Collings (1/22) found their line and Les eventually bowled the left hander with the perfect off-cutter. The first change bowlers -- Tony Malik (0/14, beating the bat a number of times) and Daniel Mortlock (2/19 off four overs of flaky ``leg''-spin) -- kept the scoring rate low, but somehow Beehive ended up getting 120/3, and it really didn't feel like they'd scored at a run-a-ball. At any rate the undeniable highlight of the innings was Anton Garrett's diving catch at short mid-wicket -- Richie Benaud always says that diving forward to the ball is the hardest type of catch to take, but there was no way Anton was going to let it go, judging by the crocodile-like grip he had on the ball.
Our innings started quite slowly, with openers Dave Williams and Nick Clarke taking the score to 39/0 after 8 overs, and some acceleration was required, with the rate up to about 7 an over. However what we got was 8 overs of explosive batting, with Dave (53*) and Nick (63*) crashing the last 82 runs off just 8 overs, with boundaries all over the shop and a sustained attack on Dave Norman's ``garden shed'' next to the pavilion. The great irony of all this was that, man-of-the-match Williams (53* and excellent keeping) was obliged to pack the bag, being the lowest scorer.