Report by Daniel Mortlock:
When CUCC regular and occasional Remnant Lewis Drummond suggested a fixture against the University's third team we had some misgivings: the one time we tried this previously back in 2017 the result was a prety joyless game in which their extremely strong (i.e., not thirds-level) team played out a pointlessly serious victory against rather weak Remnants side. But, with assurances that this was a new set-up, we agreed to the game and set about putting together the strongest eleven we could. Indeed, such were our batting riches, that Daniel felt emboldened to insert CUCC, confident that we'd be able to boss even a big chase like we did last week.
For a while it looked like we mightn't even have that big a target to pursue: after 10 (six-ball) we'd restricted CUCC to 59/3 and were clearly the happier of the two teams. This was the result of fabulous team effort: Qaiser Ahmed (1/21 from 3 overs) came back well after sometime Remnant Matty Wills punished some early looseners; Rahul Jhawar (1/23 from 4 overs) pushed through claimed exhaustion to bowl one more over, which turned out to be a wicket-maiden; Lewis Drummond (1/14 from his first 2 overs) was happy to extend his unbroken run of wicket-taking Remnants bowling spells to 5 from 5 games; and then Daniel Mortlock started with a maiden. The bowlers were well backed up in the field, as Daniel, Lewis and 'keeper James Robinson all took good catches.
Unfortunately, it turned out CUCC's main strength was its depth - their number five, A. Rehman, went on the rampage, smashing 4 4 6 4 6 4 4 (i.e., 32 from 7 balls, most of which were bowled by a now considerably less happy Lewis) to suddenly take the game out of control. Over the next half hour the ultra-short eastern boundary was cleared once per over, as the despairing fielders watched even mis-timed shots sail over their heads (or into their hands, but with their feet firmly planted on the wrong side of the line). To add to the frustration, the bowlers repeatedly beat the bat between boundaries, although it was only really Andy Owen (1/21) who consistently troubled the batters, mainly through regular use of the "run out of ideas" ball (characterised by running in from the vicinity of mid-off). We at least maintained our catching standards, with more solid catching by Lewis (again), Neeban Balayasoderan and Rahul, who also effected a direct-hit run out. It was a bit galling for the end result of 20 overs of good bowling and fielding - we've only managed more than today's six catches half a dozen times in four decades - was to be faced with a target of 166, comfortably the highest in any of games this season.
Still, as in the field, we started well, with Seb Hammersley (26* off 18 balls at this stage) scoring at the required rate until one of his many well-timed pulls was superbly caught by Matty diving full-length on the leg-side boundary. While it was a key moment, it wasn't yet "game over" as Neeban (33 off 32 balls) and Tom Serby (11 off 12 balls) continued the free-scoring. While the scoring rate dropped a little, one ball into the 12th over we were 85/2 and still in the game with 81 runs from 53 balls and two set batters in glorious sunny conditions . . .
. . . at which point a dark shadow fell over our chase both metaphorically and, more importantly, literally - as a blanket of low clouds closed in like the spaceships from Independence Day. Symbolically, the key moment was when Neeban was bowled, the first time he'd been dismissed in Remnants cricket, thus giving him a career average of "just" 131.00. Remarkably - and deperessingly - nobody else even made it to double figures as wicket started falling at an ever-increasing rate, like the character in Ernest Hermingway's The Sun Also Rises who explains how they went bankrupt "two ways: gradually, then suddenly." Our collapse of 6/19 meant in the space of a few overs we'd somehow been reduced to simply trying to avoid the indignity of being bowled out, something which had seemed to unlikely to Daniel at number eleven that he'd deliberately forgotten to bring his box. Daniel and Simon Godsill thus had to see out nine deliveries in the gloom, which they eventually managed, albeit only because it was so dark that one of the CUCC fielders dropped the simplest of chances.
So what was Mission: Impossible first time around was Mission: Unsuccessful this evening - hopefully we can go one better in 2026 . . .