Report by Daniel Mortlock:
All the talk before this evening's annual internal game was about the weather, with the Met Office having issued warnings of various colours. The conditions also inspired our team names with Daniel fronting the Fitzwilliam Fire and James leading the Leckhampton Lighnting. It certainly was hot at the ground - we followed the World Cup by introducing rehydration breaks at the 1/4 and 3/4 points of the game - but in the end it was possible for us to proceed as planned.
The same, however, cannot be said for ARM, whose players had started arriving at the ground in good time for their game against Remnants. It turned out that back in January Daniel had indeed agreed to play ARM this evening but failed to enter the fixture in the database; Daniel obviously didn't reconfirm a fixture he didn't know about and the ARM organiser presumably thought that Remnants is so well organised that there was need to check. ARM's players seemed very understanding about the error - hopefully they're not planning to revenge by booking a different opposition for our game at Queens' College in July.
The Fire batted first, opening up with Stuart Cronin (taking a break from the brai) and John Young who faced an opening attack of Stuart's wife Natasha Rutterford and John's son Lewis. John (7 off 23 balls) survived Lewis's spell of (0/24) but Natasha (1/9) produced the early highlight of the evening when she bowled Stuart (6 off 5 balls) off what he was later repeatedly heard chuntering was an "awful ball".
With these two intra-family battles played out there was a chance that the play might calm down; that it did not was primarily due to Neil Grover who opted to start his innings with a reverse ramp which saw him bowled for a golden duck by ARM recruit Sumit Sahai (1/8 on his Remnants debut). Girton regular Tony Thornton (28 off 29 balls) and Pete Ames (8 off 17 balls) then set about mounting a recovery, which they did, albeit slowly as they scored almost exclusively in walked singles. After Pete's innings was cut short by Faruk Kara (1/11), John Moore (9 off 18 balls) made his first Remnants appearance for the season - he, like so many of our regulars, had been out injured - and immediately found out why his own bowling repeatedly makes even very good batters look a little silly.
After 16 overs the Fire were just 77/4 and there was a danger that the Lightning wouldn't have a proper total to chase, an impression that was only reinforced when Sasha Vail (1/22) bowled Tony shortly afterwards. It was at this point it was noticed that the Lightning had twelve players on the ground and so Stephen Doel was immediately recruited by the Fire and told to pad up, which he was able to quickly enough to come in at number 7. This proved to be a master stroke as he smashed 28 from just 14 balls, highlighted by four dismissive boundaries off Hume Fisher (2/21) before being bowled by the final delivery of the innings.
Following a rather protacted innings break - aside from the traditional club photograph, most players went for a mid-match burger - the Lightning set about chasing their non-trivial target of 119 to win. Their top order found it pretty tough to score initially, and with one ball remaining in the 5th over their total was just 12/1, thanks to brilliantly tight bowling by Max Ayliffe (1/7, including the game's only maiden) and Stuart (0/17, having failed to dismiss Natasha despite having bouced her second ball). Max's final delivery beat the bat, but also beat the 'keeper, Neil, who had challenged the cricketing gods by storing his pint behind him, where a helmet might ordinarily be. Despite the efforts of Daniel, fielding at first slip, the ball bobbled unerringly towards its target, which was duly toppled, robbing Neil of his beer and giving the Lightning 5 penalty runs.
From there the Lightning exploded into life as James Robinson (33* retired off 30 balls) and Iqtedar Alam (9 off 12 balls) brought their team back into the game. Daniel (1/14), Paul Jordan (1/23) and John (2/15) both bowled well during this period, but couldn't slow the scoring - even though John did claim the prize wicket of Andy Owen, well caught by Tim Simmance diving at fine leg. And even James's retirement didn't have much of an effect as that brought in Hume, who scored even faster racing to 34* off 18 balls - albeit with some collateral damage, Sasha (0 off 3 balls) being run out going for a second run that was never there, bowler Tim having plenty of time to remove the bails following Daniel's indfferent throw.
Hume retired with his side in the numerical ascendancy on 111/6 off 18.1 overs, meaning they needed just 8 runs from the final 11 balls of the game; however, all was not lost for the Fire as they were now into the Lightning's tail. Pete Ames (1/6) promptly had Lewis Young (0 off 2 balls) well stumped by Neil before preventing new batter Naveen Chouksey (2* off 6 balls) from scoring; and then Stephen (0/6) conceded just a single and a two from the first five balls of the final over, meaning Naveen had one chance to hit a four to tie or a six to win. He swung as hard as he could but missed and Neil completed the take outside off . . . but James, now umpiring, had adjudged the ball to be a wide. Stephen did not concur but had no choice to rebowl the final ball . . . which was even wider outside off so wide again. If it wasn't before this was now in Stephen's head and his third attempt to finish the game was way down leg - Neil did well to get across to prevent a bye which would have tied the game. With one run between the teams Stephen resettled himself and sent down a much better ball; Naveen again swung hard and missed, so the Fire ran out winners by a single run.
It had been a most enjoyable game in which everyone batted or bowled, with the one exception of Dave Green (padded up and next in when the game ended), who hence marked his 41st Remnants season (second behind Paul on 42) with his 159th "TFC" (also second all-time). With the cricket done it was time eat, drink and be merry, thanks to the efforts of James, Faruk and, particularly, Stu, who heroically tended to the grill in the worst of the heat. Even after covering the expenses the combination of match fees and donations meant we were able to raise ??? for charity.
