Report by Daniel Mortlock:
"Oh no, not again" was the final thought of the recently created bowl of petunias as it fell towards the legendary planet of Magrathea in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This would also have been a pretty reasonable reaction for those involved in both our games this week, as the basic story this evening was remarkably similar to that yesterday; and the uncanny fact that both ended up with us chasing down the opposition's total in 8.3 (eight-ball) overs for the loss of just one wicket is suggestive of Arthur Dent having activated the Heart of Gold's infinite improbability drive.
We were decisively the more punctual team today: we had ten players ready to go by about 5:40pm, and so could have headed out to field, but for the fact that Anglian Water numbered just three or four at this point. The rest of their squad did trickle in soon after that, only for their organiser to casually announce that "We only have nine players", which Martin Heginbotham drolly noted was "another water shortage". With a bit more notice we could probably have tapped into our reservoir of reserves; as it was we just topped up their side with a sub fielder.
Playing on the same distant pitch as yesterday, we obviously didn't repeat last night's ineptness and so started with our seamers bowling from the north end of the ground with the short leg-side boundary. Strangely, though, it turns out that what really matters is bowling well, something we did yesterday and, er, did not quite manage today. Trishant Simlai (0/26) and Naveen Chouksey (0/15) both leaked runs initially, and although their second overs were better, it wasn't enough to prevent the stronger of Anglian Water's openers, Lukas ???, retiring on 25* (off 13 balls) mid-way through the third over.
That immediately allowed us to stem the flow of runs as the new batter, Guy ???, who had the vibe of a sometime cricketer, initially seemed to be all at sea. When Daniel Mortlock's first ball took his glove and was sharply caught by 'keeper Andy Owen, standing up, we thought we'd closed his account but the batter stood his ground and the umpire was unmoved. The close in fielders were bewildered, and with some justification it turned out: in subsequent discussions Guy agreed that the ball had hit his glove but apparently didn't realise that this counted as part of the bat; but there was nothing to do but get on with the game. Initially it appeared that this wasn't going to matter, as Daniel's next three balls all went past the outside edge. This induced James Robinson at mid-on to assert "There's no way the ball's coming to me!" and request to be moved to slip, which he duly was . . . and so of course you already know that the next ball was smacked over the now vacant mid-on spot to the boundary. This, it turned out, opened the floodgates as Guy went from 1* off 9 balls retirement on 25* off 17 balls, his full innings being . 1 . . . . . . . 4 . 1 4 1 4 4 6. His main victim was Seb Hammersley who probably regretted acceding to his captain's request to take the pace off the ball, his one over costing 24 runs. We got some relief at the change of ends, with Faruk Kara (0/20) conceding "just" 10 from his first over, but with Anglian Water in full flow on 82/0 after 7 overs it was hard not to feel the match was gone.
So it hence fabulous to report that from this point on we mounted a fantastic comeback, as Faruk, Sasha Vail (1/5, and unlucky to get just the one wicket), Daniel (1/5) and Yash Verma (0/6) allowed just 33 runs from the final 5 overs. Anglian Water's final total of 105/2 was still competitive given the ultra-short format, but nowhere near what seemed likely at the half-way point.
Our chase proceeded pretty serenely as we consistently scored at more than the required rate. Our top order was every bit as dominant as theirs, with Seb Hammersley (26* off 14 balls) and Yash Verma (25* off 12 balls) racing to retirement - and hence staying neck and neck in the race to be the season's top run-scorer, with Yash on 323 and Seb on 321. Third placed James Robinson seemed set to keep pace with them until he tried for a second six to the long boundary and well well caught for 16 off (16 balls), leaving him a boat length back on 277.
With our score nicely topped up by a healthy donation of 18 extras we reached the change of ends on 73/1, one more than Anglian Water had been at the same time - but, critically, now with the short boundary on the leg-side for the second half of our innings. Despite Naveen making some great stops as a substitute fielder, it was pretty clear we were going to win comfortably. Sure enough, Kanwar Singh (21* off 17 balls in his first Remnants game back after parental leave) finished the game with a couple of big boundaries, the only downside of which was it meant Anand Kairamkonda (1* off 3 balls) didn't get much of a bat. This is an almost inevitable problem in these abbreviated late-season games, although overall the "action" was shared pretty evenly this evening: other than Anand and Andy (who kept wicket and was padded up to come in next), the other nine players all bowled and/or faced between 16 and 22 balls.
This week's results take our season's ledger to 15 wins and 13 losses in external games, meaning that there's an all but infinite improbability of ending the season in the red.