Phil Hastings, captaining Remnants for the first time, also found time to pen the following match report:
Another sunny but chilly spring day provided an uninterrupted evening of cricket at Fitzwilliam College, playing Haslingfield, possibly for the first time - someone will have to check the record books . . . the result of which was the surprising discovery that Remnants played them once, back in August 1983. They were looking for an early season warm-up before the more serious task of their summer league campaign, whereas we were just looking for a win.
A steady start in the field from Remnants, featuring some good tight fielding and good contributions with the ball from Himanshu Agrawal (2/14 on debut), Russell Woolf (2/13) and Tom Jordan (1/15) saw Haslingfield restricted to 122/6 from their 15 eight-ball overs.
This was a total which looked a challenge but eminently gettable as Messrs Richer and Speller strode out to begin the Remnants reply. Unfortunately by the time 10 balls had been bowled, Remnants found themselves staring at the prospect of a heavy defeat with the score on 1/4 (yes, that's 1 run scored and four batsmen back in the pavilion).
Tom Jordan (17 off 27 balls) and Andy Owen (50* off 74 balls) did a tremendous job of rebuilding the innings, but sadly we were always just too far behind the asking rate with not enough wickets in hand to stage a successful fightback. (There was also the small problem that nobody other than Tom and Andy scored more than 3 or lasted more than 7 balls.) On another day we might have been a match for them but it was not to be as we were undone at the top of the innings by a combination of good tight bowling plus some early season batting rustiness.
The game was perhaps also notable for the debut of Ollie Hastings (2 off 7 balls), at a mere 14 years of age still able to score twice as many runs as his dad (1 off 2 balls), a fact which his dad has already been reminded of several times . . .
So that leaves us still searching for that elusive first win of the season, (and marks the fist time since 1991 that we've started with three straight losses). It's also worth mentioning that Haslingfield were a friendly team, and the game was played in just the right spirit and enjoyable for that. I certainly hope they're on the fixture list again next season.