AVCC v Farley
The youngsters of Farley gave our grizzled veterans a demonstration of the benefits of being able to run, jump, and bend over.
If there's one thing your correspondent has got right this season, it is some very astute calls on the weather. He was mightily confused by the BBC's random forecasting, nearly cancelling on Saturday, only to be given a clear day 18 hours out and then faced drizzle for a couple of hours around lunch time on the day. He held his nerve, despite a number of naysayers and the mizzle left off around 3pm. I'm sure this proves something about courage of convictions or something like that, but the truth is that by 11am, he'd made the sandwiches and was not going to be left with six plates of tuna/cheese and onion/ham pickle to solemnly munch through on his own.
Farley turned up with a side in which every member was younger than our youngest player, Paddy Bond (pushing 35 - allegedly). This was unnerving for the team and your correspondent, who, having lost the loss, being inserted and sensing disaster in the air, ducked the captaincy in favour of the much safer hands of Mike (nice shop, has everything you need, on the corner in Upavon) Parr.
In the words of Blackadder - it started badly, tailed off in the middle and the less said about the end the better. Tim Gent (North Newton nibbler) showed good technique, Paddy Bond (putting the swash back into buckling) made some heroic thrashes at thin air, Mike Parr almost played himself back into form, but the hero of the hour was undoubtedly Dudley (fitness first) Perrin.
Coming in at 9, with AVCC in some trouble, Dudley slammed and carved 16 fine runs to lift us to 82 all out in 30 overs (supposed to be 35). This could have been quite a few more if the wet ground hadn't retarded some of his better shots on the way to the boundary. Dudley is not by nature a scamperer between the wickets - he would admit this, I think. Betrayed by the conditions, what should have been fours, became twos and then ones, until he was dismissed not by the opposition, but by the effort of travelling 22 yards on one leg on too regular a basis.
The fielding and bowling were a good deal better, galvanised by the new skipper. We felt that if we'd scored 130 or so the result could have been different. Graham Newland bowled a very tidy spell of 6 overs for 12 runs. Bowling honours however went to Ben Eveling, bowling leggies, sliders and bona fide googlies (one actually beat batsman and keeper), he picked up 2 for 21 off 6. The purists purred and cricket was the winner. It was also accompanied by a fine selection of verbal nonsense, posing as commentary, particularly appreciated by non-striker, umpire and short extra cover.
Simon Borthwick held a fine catch and Tim Gent (posing as a 25 year old) rushed around to good effect on the very deep mid-wicket boundary (this needs looking at given the relative mobility of the current side). Mark Pugh-Cook kept very tidily. However, Farley coasted home in the end, not without difficulty, scoring 83 for 4 off 24 overs.
Farley were generous winners, a pleasure to play against, but highlighted a gap in our current youth policy.
Tea was generally considered to be magnificent, the ground was a picture and we cleared up quite a few things over a pint afterwards.