Report by Daniel Mortlock:
With 17 players having made themselves available for this evening's scheduled fixture against Trinity College High Table it seemed the only administrative difficulty would be working out who would, sadly, miss out on a game. Unfortunately, the Trinity fellows are, apparently, not the most reliable bunch and a few days ago messages started coming in from Cam that their numbers were decreasing at about the rate of one a day (and no, not because they're that old). Moreover, the few players of theirs who remained committed to the fixture were almost all Remnants - by the start of today there were only two players left in their depleted line-up who haven't turned out for us this season. At around lunchtime it was decided to repurpose the game to be an impromptu internal fixture between the Remnants of Fitzwilliam and the (literal) Remnants of Trinity.
Come game time it was almost as if all this organisational chaos had sapped Team Trinity of its life-force, as Team Fitz found themselves standing around ready to start the game for about 15 minutes before Cam and Lahiru Wijedasa finally emerged from the changing room. Such was the delay that, despite it being mid-summer, we agreed to retreat to 15x8s - although even we didn't finish until after 9pm.
The cricket did at least start with a bang as Cam (19 off 10 balls) smacked a series of boundaries before being run out by Lahiru . . . who'd called him through for what turned out to be a foolish run as CJ Barrie executed a superb one-handed pick-up and direct hit. (A similarly risky run earlier in the over had only just survived CJ's foot-only run out attempt.) Naveen (2/10) then continued the good work for Team Fitz, taking two more wickets in the over, including that of a decidedly unhappy Neil Grover plumb LBW first ball. Shikhar Asthana (1/15) and Pete Ames (1/30) both got wickets as well, although this was double-edged as Team Trinity's strong middle order then came in with more than enough time to set a big total. Hume Fisher (19 off 16 balls) looked untroubled until Sasha Vail (1/38) lured him down the track, whence he lost his bat and was well stumped by Marcus Baker. That meant Sasha now got a second crack at the two batters she'd bamboozled in last week's internal game: Natasha Rutterford and Neeban Balayasoderan. Natasha (13 off 20 balls, with some spectacularly aggresssive calling) and Neeban (21 off 13 balls) got their revenge today, Neeban in particular waiting very effectively for the ball to reach him this time around. Neeban did eventually get tempted into a rash shot, being well caught by Daniel Mortlock diving forward on the square boundary off the bowling of Temoor Khan (1/7). That left Chris Badger to finish things off with a largely effortless 30* off 23 balls, going to the retirement score off the final ball of the innings from Daniel (0/33, and wicketless for only the second time this season - both the internal games).
Team Fitz's reply started slowly, as expected given that TK was, as in the same fixture last year facing up to Iqtedar Alam with Hume behind the stumps. Needless to say there were no wild marches down the pitch; but the result was that the innings started with four dot balls, which broadly seemed to represent a psychological victory for Iqtedar. TK's then opened his - and the team's - account with a lofted drive which went comfortably over Neil at mid-on, who then set off in pursuit, doing well to catch up with the ball just inside the boundary. We were then treated to some of the most extraordinarily "village" cricket most of us have ever seen. It was easily up there with the best of the "that's so village" videos that we've all watched millions of times, with the bonus feature that there were two simultaneous theatres of action.