This year's Remnants annual dinner was (for the fourth year running) at the Burleigh Arms pub on Newmarket Road, on Friday, November 10. We had a pretty good turn-out, with thirty-odd Remnants players, partners and supporters coming out for the evening.
The formalities began with the annual quiz:
(To see the answers simply highlight the region below the questions with your mouse by dragging the cursor across the screen with the left button held down.)
Numbers game
Matt Samson (568 runs at 94.67).
Faruk Kara (28 wickets at 19.07).
Grant Kennedy (11 dismissals).
Kshitij Sabnis (who was finally dismissed after starting his Remnants career with four "not out"s).
Matt Samson (100* off 65 balls against the Academicals).
Temoor Khan.
Veterans
Faruk Kara.
Paul Jordan (with 309 wickets by season's end).
Tony Malik (366) and Daniel Mortlock (328).
Geoff Hales, Anton Garrett, Steve Gull and Mike Sneyd.
Richard Rex who, by playing for Bar Hill "finally got to represent an out-of-town shopping centre".
The laws
Bowled (assuming the bails come off).
If Matt Samson (the bowler, in this case) manages to convince the umpire with one of his passionate but unjustified LBW appeals (which is what happened against St Barnabas this year).
18 wanted off 7
Nathan Wright (against Cambridge University Thirds).
Daniel Mortlock (5/7 against Trinity College High Table).
Catherine Owen (against the Institute of Public Health).
Quentin Harmer's daugher, Florie.
Samuel Serby.
Richard Rex, Josh Nall and ???.
St Barnabas scored high by ordering pizzas to be delivered to the ground for a post-match dinner. The Red Bull (on Barton Road) once again failed to serve anyone pizza.
Total: 40 runs.
Grant Kennedy and collaborators won the quiz, and with it some nice Green & Black chocolates . . . although there was some controversy as it seemed that Naveen Chouksey and his table had gotten the same score.
The Champagne Moment was awarded to Phil Watson, who stuck out a paw and held onto a sharp return catch against Grantchester in the end-of-season game on September 11. It was a great moment, although one can't help but feel that Geoff's decision to make this award was in part self-interest: Geoff had been the standing umpire, and would probably have taken the ball in the face if Phil hadn't taken it in his hand.
Phil Watson won the Les Collings pickled egg award on the grounds that he actually likes them.
John Moore finally solved the problem of the hideous Phil Watson memorial discretionary trophy by exploiting the fact that Phil was in attendance to give it back to him, with instructions that it spend the rest of its life with Phil in the West Country.
Despite his best efforts, Grant Kennedy was unable to win the "most improved player of the year" award for a third year running, and it instead went to Chris Badger, who managed 317 points from his 6 games (up from 30 points from 2 games in 2016), his improvement of 287 points just pipping Faruk Kara with 286 . . . although if one of three dropped catches in the last game of the season had been held then the award would have gone to Faruk.