Fitzwilliam College vs. Remnants

Friday, June 23, 2006
Fitzwilliam College

Fitzwilliam College (118/4 in 20 six-ball overs)
lost to
Remnants (120/2 in 12.3 six-ball overs)
by some wickets.

Every year some rogue element in the Cambridge cricketing world decides to play silly buggers and organise a Friday evening match against Remnants. And every time it goes wrong, whether it be due to rain or the failure of one of the teams to get a side out. Today, at least, the weather was magnificent, and we did manage to field a reasonably good team against Fitzwilliam College, even if it was one man short of the conventional eleven.

The pre-match scene

The match is about to get underway.

Intrepid photo-journalist Dave Green reports that the year's pattern continued without any perceptible change: we fielded first and restricted yet another side to a 120-ish total. It's all to easy to just assume that we'll do this week in week out, but with only three regular bowlers in the side it was a tribute to Nick Clarke's canny management as much as anything else today. George Speller (1/14) made the first breakthrough before Dave Williams (2/14) and Remnants first-timer David Maund (1/8) took control towards the end of the innings.

Lost ball!

Lost ball!

So far, so good . . . but our repeated successes in the field have largely been undone by a season-long batting malaise, so victory was no forgone conclusion. Today though, Remnants (in Dave's words) ``at long last batted'', with John Gull (40 off 26 balls) and Dave Williams (20*) quickly putting us in an unasailable position with a 60-run opening stand off just 6 overs, scoring from ``some good hits, and the misses usually got runs too'' (again, according to our far-ranging correspondent and part-time astrophysicist).

Nick Clarke and John Gull

Nick Clarke arrives as John Gull departs.

We did have a bit of a stutter mid-innings, losing two wickets in two balls, but from then on it was the George Speller show. He smacked 48 not out off just 27 balls (thus ending John's half-hour residence at the top of the newly-conceived fastest innings leader board), hitting the winning runs with some 45 balls to spare.

The scoreboard

A Remnants run-chase going well for a change: Dave Maund and John Moore are justifiably relaxed with just 23 needed off 60 balls with 8 wickets in hand.

The report from just a few weeks ago finished with a few whistful recollections wondering what happened to the Remnants team that could chase down sizeable totals with overs to spare -- could it be we're back in town?