Report by Daniel Mortlock:
The pre-match scene at Fitz was a study in contrasts: a goodly fraction of the Cambourne Centaurs players were aligned at the side of the ground facing south-east to offer Asr (afternoon) prayers; at the same time about half our side were throwing high catches to each other, a marked change to our usual approach of, er, just standing around. While the prayers appeared to be performed seamlessly (as one would expect for a daily ritual), the same cannot be said for our fielding drills. Lahiru performed the unusual feat of distracting himself into dropping a sitter by shouting "Lahiru's!" just as the ball reached him; Daniel fumbled a low ball having moved awkwardly to it in flip-flops; Quentin made a similar error despite being in full whites; and Iqtedar couldn't get his back-pedalling right and almost took the ball to the head. It was hence no surprise that, having won the toss again, we took the opportunity to defer any further fielding to later in the game - the opposition captain's response to seeing he'd called incorrectly was a resigned "Don't bother, I know what you're going to do."
We took the chance to go with a father-son opening pair, Stephen and Matthew Doel heading out with instructions to both make to the retirement score of 40 if they could. Matthew (13 off 14 balls) looked in good shape to do this until he got over-confident and missed a straight one; while Stephen progressed serenely to score a superb 40* (off 29 balls). After a little mid-innings lull we then got back on track thanks to Marcus Baker (38* off 46 balls) and Lahiru Wijedasa (28 off 21 balls, before being caught by TK at what was agreed to be a new fielding position, silly fly-slip). Sujay Iyer (9* off 7 balls) then played a nice cameo - lots of big flourishes with his shots - to take us to a solid total of 142/3.
From what we could see of the Centaurs line-up their two key batters would, once again, be our own Qaiser Ahmed and K***** T*** (whose lawyers contacted Remnants to demand his name not be mentioned in connection with the Centaurs batting innings). And, sure enough, both were as central to the conclusion of the game as any of us. An early wicket saw "KT" striding out from the pavilion in the first over, so we responded by bringing on Matthew (1/14), bowling about 10 mph quicker than last season, with explicit instructions to send him back again. It's at this point that Iqtedar Alam takes up the story:
"I was re-positioned just in front of square leg for TK (oops!! KT), saving the single, exactly where I needed to be. Doel Jr. was absolutely breathing fire, so I was expecting another bumper. Matthew had been relentless with the short stuff all over, but this one was just a fraction fuller. That gave KT the first real chance in the over to free his arms. He absolutely middled it. From there, everything happened in a blur. There was no time to think, no time to react. The ball came at me like a meteor. Fast. Unbelievably Fast. Instinct took over. I just managed to get my hands down into line with it, softened them at the last possible moment so the ball wouldn't cannon out. It still bobbled a bit. I would say I had control about 80% of the way, and-it-stuck."
Possibly inspired by this potentially match-winning catch, Lahiru Wijedasa put in his entry for catch of the day when, following a lofted drive off James Cummins (1/36), he ran back at mid-off and took the ball at full stretch looking back over his shoulder. This brought Qaiser to the crease who, annoyingly, played beautifully as he raced to 30* off 17 balls. Sujay (1/17) slowed him down somewhat and then Iqtedar (4/12) dismissed most of his teammates, in part thanks to good catches by Daniel Mortlock at cow corner and Quentin Harmer at gully. But the only time Qaiser actually stopped scoring was when, following a batter's complaint about the now decreased visibility (which presumably meant Daniel's and Quentin's catches were correspondingly more impressive), we agreed to switch to a pink ball; that was fine in principle, execpt for the fact that we didn't have one in the Remnants kit box; so we agreed to continue only for a pink ball to belatedly be produced; Sujay was all set to resume play until he noticed it was a small junior ball; we then requested the original ball be returned to the field of play which led to (even more) farcical scenes as two different red balls were repeatedly thrown out from the pavilion and then rejected as being "the wrong one". In the end play did resume with a red ball of unknown provenance, albeit after a delay long enough that it was now noticably darker than when we first began our doomed quest to find a pink ball.
Given the conditions, it was only fair that we now turned to our slowest bowlers . . . on whom Qaiser feasted, taking the Centaurs to 111/8 after 12 (eight-ball) overs, meaning they needed an all too plausible 32 runs off 24 balls. The one thing in our favour was that Qaiser had now been retired, albeit perhaps briefly given one more wicket would bring him back out again. We were all a bit nervous, particularly Sujay who started gesturing wildly to skipper Daniel that . . . well, it's not clear exactly what, but it seemed to suggest a dissatisfaction with the status quo. Daniel's response to this was to take the ball himself: if it works it's a cool power-move; if not then it's the sort of egotistical effort personified by Ben Stokes's mid-match retirement show from a few days ago. Happily, it worked: the Centaurs' number 11 was quickly dispatched by the radical tactic of bowling straight; Qaiser (who finished on 44* off 32 balls) was then allowed a single; and his partner then went for a big cross-bat swipe, the ball heading out to Stephen Doel at deep mid-wicket (or perhaps silly cow?), who took a fantastic diving catch. Aside from helping Daniel to tidy figures of 3/7, this completed one the best Remnants fielding performances any of us could remember. Given Lahiru's sharp observation that all four us who'd been involved in the pre-match fielding drills took good catches, these sessions (as well as a midnight curfew) will now be made a mandatory part of Remnants cricket.
