Remnants vs. Grantchester

18:00, Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Fitzwilliam College

Remnants (99/6 in 20 6-ball overs)
lost to
Grantchester (100/8 in 13.2 6-ball overs)
by 2 wickets.

Report by Paul Jordan:

Our games against Grantchester are usually keenly competitive affairs. I recognised a number of their players but their talisman opening bowler was missing; further enquiries revealed he was probably sailing on a yacht in Croatia. Images of Duran Duran's video for Rio come to mind - does he know what he is missing?

Simon Godsill and Faruk Kara await their turn; Andy Bell wishes he'd made better use of his.
[Image credit: Dave Green.]

Nevertheless Remnants elected to bat after skipper Paul Jordan had won the toss. The batting line up based on previous outings would suggest that a decent score would be well within our reach. Our opening partnership of James Robinson and John Richer had seemingly not read the thoughts of their skipper on this occasion, as both were removed in the first 2 overs, James for 2 and John failing to score. The Grantchester opening bowlers were bowling to a good length but, more importantly, with clever variation and late swing. This brought together the reliable Tom Serby and the mercurial Temoor Khan. From 13/2 off 2 overs, we progressed to 54/3 off 10, Tom scoring 9 while ably supporting the free scoring TK, who retired on 41*. The remaining batsman including long time Remnant Andrew Lea (21*) kept the score going and we scraped together a rather unimpressive 99. Dave Green had of course has witnessed this batting performance from Remnants on a number of occasions and would probably have assumed that we would be on the end of an embarrassing hiding. But if Geoff had been looking on from afar he might have suggested that in cricket as in life, you should never write off an underdog or in this case a Remnants team. Grantchester as we surmised correctly had a number of young and determined looking batsmen who would be more than capable of dispatching this eminently chaseable target.

Action.
[Image credit: Dave Green.]

The Grantchester innings could not have got off to a better start. Largely due to some combative batting from their opener with 37 and an expensive over from ourselves. After 5 overs Grantchester stood at an imperious 57/1, at least we avoided a ten wicker defeat the fatalists might say. But the tide was about to turn with the introduction of two bowlers who might just wrestle a wicket and keep the free scoring rate in check. TK and Faruk Kara combined to produce a face saving and almost improbable narrow victory in the remaining overs. TK bowled beautifully, successively bamboozling and removing the Grantchester middle order. He finished up with 4/16, in as good a spell of bowling as I have seen in a long time. Faruk almost matched TK's figures with 3/22, bowling with subtle variation in length and pace. The Grantchester faithful were now beginning to wonder if this comfortable looking victory was now slipping from their grasp. They stood after 12 overs at a precarious looking 82/8, which meant the game now was poised for an exciting finale. Could we prise these remaining wickets or had they a batsman who could see them home?

Well the outcome is of course history and the speculative scenario was sadly the latter. The game of cricket never ceases to surprise, delight and disappoint its participants in almost equal measure in some cases. As we came off the pitch we realised that we had all been part of a most remarkable game, which thankfully, always manages to inspire you to do just that one better next time.