Report by Daniel Mortlock:
It was one of those horrible Cambridge days that it's almost been possible to forget about: dark grey clouds overhead; a nasty wind whipping across the fens; bursts of rain punctuating the afternoon. However it didn't have the decency to rain properly until about 6:15pm, meaning that the Remnants and St Barnabas teams had to leg it out to the ground (Queens', for the final time this year), change, toss, head out onto the field . . . and then play for all of ten balls before scurrying back under cover of the pavilion.
Which was a rather inauspicious way to make it to the end of July and the three-quarters point of our season. Compared to the glorious months that preceded it, July has been rather forgettable: 3 wins and 4 losses (compared to 9 and 7 in the first half of the season) and, including today, 2 wash-outs (compared to none before that). Overall we're still ahead for the year, though, with 12 wins and 11 losses to go with a nicely uniform collection of sundries: 1 tie, 1 internal game, 1 draw and 1 cancellation.
Despite our inability to dominate our opponents, there have been some storming individual efforts so far this year. The batting averages is a three-man race between Nick Clarke (360 runs at 51.43), George Speller (285 runs at 47.50) and Dave Williams (407 runs at 45.22), although the as-yet unqualified Daniel Mortlock (190 runs at 63.33) could fly past the leaders if he gets out once more. Bowling-wise it's the slow men all the way, with Adrian Mellish (10 wickets at 7.30), Quentin Harmer (9 wickets at 12.44), Russell Woolf (19 wickets at 12.63) and Faruk Kara (6 wickets at 14.33) all having figures to die for (in at least one sense of the word). Somewhat predictably, though, it's the seamers who've been the most economical, with Joe White (4.20), Kiran Sakhamuri (4.33) and George Speller (4.47) all going for less than 4.50 an over (and four others bowlers, including Adrian again, going for less than 5 an over).