Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Tonight's scores indicate a pretty comfortable Remnants victory, but they only tell part of the story: restricting St Barnabas to double figures was clearly good going, but we did this while giving all eleven Remnants a bowl (for the first time ever). Kiran Sakhamuri (1/5), Ferdi Rex (1/5), Catherine Owen (1/9) and Richard Rex (1/14) all did well enough, but the real highlight was when Ev Fox took off the gloves to take 1/5 in his first non-internal Remnants spell since June 2000.
Despite losing a few early wickets, we were never in any danger of failing to chase our target, as Maximus Rex (12 off 7 balls), Ev Fox (20 off 20 balls), Richard Rex (35* off 62 balls - slow going, but an acceleration, having been 9* off 32 balls) and Eli Ellwood (12* off 11 balls) all made good contributions.
Report by St Barnabus Church:
Some three months on from our season opening victory, here was the rematch that everyone was talking about.
Gloriously we showed great skill and judgement to win the toss and elected to bat on a soggy pitch that had somehow survived a monsoon-like downpour on Tuesday morning and was declared fit for play.
The plan - set an imposing total, say 130+ and then skittle them out in the fading light.
Sadly, as M Vaughan states repeatedly on TMS, it's about having good plans and then [perhaps more importantly] being able to execute.
Our opening pair (Messrs Swann and Jacob, a throwback to the 2011 season) started in dogged fashion, looking to score off any loose deliveries. Evidently not many of these were offered up and the score hadn't quite reached double figures before Alex perished. Joined in the middle by Chris, Allen looked to up the rate - with some frantic running and high risk singles. Ultimately this cost him dearly, being run out for 8, although there were suggestions that a TV replay may have reversed the on-field decision. Andy J joined Chris in the middle very briefly before being given out caught behind, but thereafter Will (25) and Chris (26) began to build the foundation of a potentially decent total.
Once Will had departed, various other SBCC batsmen came and went but few runs were added. A total of 97 on the board - not so imposing perhaps, but worth noting that in our first match against Remnants this was precisely the number of runs they had compiled in their failing run chase. So a psychological advantage then? As it turned out, no.
We bowled reasonably well with a second-string attack (Gunton, Goldring and Huisman sunning themselves somewhere). In truth we were aided by the Remnants opening pair doing a pretty convincing impression of Boycott and Tavare. They had put on 40 fairly tedious runs in around 10 overs before I managed to bowl a straight one to remove the more adventurous of the two. Wickets were few and far between. Chris W was the pick of the bowlers (2 for 19 in his 4 overs) and Andy J bowled with his customary precision (0 for 10 in 3). Dave P and Quentin attempted to beguile our opponents with some spin, but were picked off quite easily on this occasion. The result was never really in the balance and Remnants trudged over the line with an over or so to spare.
So there we are. It was in fact a very enjoyable evening with the Fitz ground bathed in summer evening sunshine.
One other minor point for the record: Remnants fielded a young lady and handed her the ball mid-way through our innings. A stroke of genius as it turned out - for having dispatched her second delivery to the boundary, I was caught trying to repeat the feat, popping up an easy catch to cover. Ahem.
There's talk of a 3rd match decider on August 28th. I'll let you know shortly if it's confirmed.