The day was magnificent -- warm, sunny, clear-skied -- cruelly leading us poor cricketers to believe we'd be playing our brand of evening cricket in perfect conditions . . . which had been replaced by heavy clouds and dubious light by the time we took to the field. Still, it would be churlish to complain too much, because we actually got to play for once.
We batted first, and it was pretty slow going, The Beehive having a seemingly endless supply of nippy bowlers who could bowl just short of a length on off stump. Ev Fox (35) and Nev Fidler (17) built a solid partnership, which proved to be the perfect launching pad for a middle-order collapse. There was something of a revival in the last few overs, with Daniel Mortlock (29*) chancing his arm, but our eventual total of 108/7 was none too impressive.
Our time in the field was certainly interesting, as well as being strangely misleading. For most of the innings it felt as if we had the batsmen under control -- Paul Henderson (2/22), Colin Anderson (2/24) and Daniel Mortlock (2/16) saw to it that no real partnerships got going -- and yet somehow our opposition needed just 30 runs off the last five overs.
Upon realising this the game became quite intense, but we didn't quite get the breaks we needed. John Gull (0/30) and Mike Jones (0/7) saw a few skied balls fall tantalisingly out of the fielders' reach or, in one case, within two fielders' reaches, with Rich (``Rich's ball! Rich's ball!'') and Nev (``Nev's ball! Nev's ball!'') calling out -- and then reaching out -- in unison, with the inevitable result that the ball found its way safely to ground. (That said, the our fielding standards were unusually high, with John Gull, Mike Jones, Rich Savage and Graham Stafford all rock-solid in the outfield.) The cruellest blow of all came in the last over when Ev Fox, standing up to Jack Anderson (1/7), completed what appeared to be his second brilliant stumping of the evening . . . only to have our passionate appeal turned down. (When Ev incredulously re-appealed the umpire scolded that he ``wasn't going to fall for that old trick,'' whatever that means.) The next ball was hit to the boundary to tie the scores, after which a thick edge to fine leg saw The Beehive home with four balls to spare.
It was frustrating to lose such a close, hard-fought match, although Nev kindly provided a twenty quid bar tab to help us drown our sorrows (and launder his ill-gotten gambling profits).