We won!
Yeah, yeah, I know it's traditional to try and build a bit of tension and tell the story of the match as it unfolded, but the match wasn't all that interesting and, for only the second time since May, WE WON! Not that it could all good news, of course, as three Remnants (Steve Tyrrell, Martin Parry and, eponymously, Phil Watson) also managed to lose, being members of the vanquished team.
Due to our usual tardiness we batted first, and for once were batting against bowling which wasn't too threatening. Viranga Kekulawla (34) and Daniel Mortlock (31) put together a good second wicket partnership of 70-odd, scoring at about a run a ball, although they never really got hold of the bowling. Then, when they got themselves out in successive overs, Nick Clarke (19) and John Gull (29*) provided the necessary acceleration to take us to an eventual 143/4. (Note that this was only the second time we'd passed 140 all season; by way of comparison we've been passing this mark at least half a dozen times in previous years.)
Not that it looked at all secure at the start of The Watsonians' innings. Phil sent in a succession of ``sloggers'' (his words), with the effect that both runs and wickets came at a great rate. Early on, our bowlers (with the exception of Alex Brown, who took 2/29 to be second past the ten-wicket milestone for the season) seemed very keen on feeding the batsmen's leg-side repertoire, and it was a while before we found the right combination. Once we did, however, the batsmen were very efficiently closed down, with Daniel Mortlock (1/6), Paul Jordan (0/17) and Robin Woolley (2/7) conceding a total of just 30 runs from their 9 overs. Of these, Robin's effort was the most dramatic -- his first over was more like catching practice, with John Gull and then Dave Green snaffling pressure catches with assurity. The match finished with Steve Chadwick (0/13) and Viranga Kekulawla (0/7) keeping the increasingly frustrated batsmen well in check and, although neither took a wicket, they can take partial credit for the poor running that allowed Robin Woolley to close out the match with a very relaxed direct-hit run out from cover.
So, as was ``predicted'' in the introductory paragraph, we won. The next task is to turn the season around to the degree that we end up with more wins than losses -- our current ledger is four in the red (or three, if you count six-a-side games), and there are eight external games to come. How's that for a challenge?
