Report by Tom Serby:
April is underrated (except perhaps by the ECB), generally being considered too wet and cold; "whan that Aprille with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote" or just "the cruelest month . . . memory and desire, stirring. Dull roots with spring rain". Memory and desire stirring though does seem to capture the first outings of a new season, though I doubt TS Elliot was a cricketer. May is the new April this year (April having been a "droghte"); the day before this match Cambridge recorded a high of 8 degrees, and rarely can the Fitz ground have looked more lusciously green at the end of May - but this evening for a change we actually had the swifts cavorting in shadows and sunshine.
Exhorted via email before the match by club captain Daniel's call to arms with statistical evidence of the club's diminishing win ratio (a contrast with recent oppo the Barnies who pride themselves on losing) we were pepped up to take one against the head over ancient rivals the jazz hatters Woozlers, of Arundel fame et al. Bit of a tall order what with the likes of Woozlers' Ed Hyde limbering up over the weekend with a win at Lord's in his latest appearance there, and returning familiar Woozlers faces like Sam Grimshaw (now a research fellow and supervising a PhD by Woozlers wicket keeper on swinging cricket balls, hotly debated over post match beers).
Cutting to the chase, Remnants batted first. After opening with seam at both ends most of Woozlers' bowlers were twirleymen. Openers Kanwar Singh (clumping) and Tom Serby (taking the broom out) laid a platform. The evening's skipper Chris Badger then wisely alternated between restraint and "cow" faced by Quentin Harmer's dobbers until he was cruelly out to a brilliant one-handed catch to his best timed shot of the innings, whereafter middle order acceleration by Qaiser Ahmed (13 off 18 balls), Ashwin Venkatesh (9* off 7 balls) and Sushant Achawal (9* off 4 balls) saw us post 110/5 in 15 eight-ball overs.
All we needed now to make Daniel happy was for Woozlers to do a Barnies and play to lose which in a way they did, mainly saving the big guns for the tail, presumably expecting to have an evening off batting (Hyde's post Varsity victory hangover still lingering maybe). New Remnants opening seam pair of Sushant Achawal (0/18) and Brajesh Kumar (2/21) effected good early scoreboard pressure, whereupon old Remnants Faruk Kara (2/20) and Paul Jordan (1/27) exploited the pressure with all the cunning of their years - but some of us were by now worrying that every falling wicket was hastening our inevitable doom. In the midst of this there was a stunning run out effected by Brajesh. It fell to "new" Remnant Michael Foulkes (2/18) to bowl the last two overs from the Windsor Road end to the Woozlers numbers 9 and 10, Messrs Grimshaw and Hyde (interspersed with a brilliant over from the football end in the gloaming from Qaiser, 0/5, to fellow Madingleyian Roger), and a fine job Michael did of it. A younger field (yes this is a self reference) probably would have saved two scampered singles to square leg in the last over, but with the last ball Woozlers hadn't reached their target (assuming they were playing to win, debateable as noted) although they had reached our total. The thrilling denouement . .. a flick to leg and we hence lost on the last ball.
But more importantly everyone on both teams had either batted or bowled to generally good effect and had a good time (or if they hadn't they should have done - this sure beats our leaders' banning of fun, exercise, companionship, sport, etc., etc, through lockdown).
