Report by Daniel Mortlock:
A cricketing miracle took place at Fitz this evening: the game began at the scheduled time, with the first ball sent down at around a quarter to six. That it was delivered by one of TK's Centaurs does, however, reveal that the credit for this grand achievement was not ours - the final member of our eleven only arrived half way through the first innings.
By this stage our heavyweight opening partnership of James Robinson (our highest run-scorer this season) and Martin Heginbotham (topping the batting averages) had already raced to retirement: James (32* off 16 balls) got all the strike early on; and then Martin (33* off 18 balls) took over, losing two balls over the high netting in the process. There was some controversy off his final delivery when, on 29, a fielder managed to stop the ball just inside the boundary but then picked it up while his foot was on the line, leading us spectators to all start enthusiastically signalling four . . . which the umpire eventually did as well, leading to vociferous protests by the fielder (which would have been long forgotten if they hadn't been recorded for posterity here). Unfortunately, our middle order couldn't keep up the good work - nobody other than the late-arriving Cam Petrie (25* off 19 balls) made more than 6 runs, and Neil Grover (5 off 21 balls) was on track to repeat his Trinity marathon before nicking off.
Our total of 118/6 didn't feel like enough and we really couldn't afford any mistakes in the field . . . so it was a pity we put in one of the worst team-level fielding performances in memory. The bowling was all over the place and we were lucky to have just eight wides called - which was useful from a team perspective, but harsh on James behind the stumps, who ended up with a dozen byes next to his name. Still, he did manage one of our few useful fielding efforts, doing well to stay low while standing up to take an edge off the bowling of Tim Simmance (1/20). It was no surprise that this was the only catch we took (even if it was technically down to the lack of chances) as our outfielding was largely dismal, lowlighted by half a dozen regulation stops on the boundary which saw the ball somehow end up on the wrong side of the boundary. The other wickets we took were from batters missing straight balls: Faruk Kara (2/28) took his 21st wicket of the summer, just one behind Daniel Mortlock (0/22), who failed to add to his season-high tally of 22; and Lewis Young (1/7) produced our best delivery of the day to hit the top of off stump. But it was too little too late and the Centaurs strolled home with nearly two overs to spare (which was just as well given the fading light).
