Fun in the Fen

If this was football they would be talking about a 6 pointer. A run of just one win in the last 10 games had seen us slip into the relegation zone and a game against the Fen Ditton team that had climbed above us had really become a must win (sorry to use that hoary old cliche).

Well, we did win and with other results going our way the table looks a lot rosier now:

• 5th NCI - 158 pts
• 6th Coton - 153
• 7th March - 150
• 8th Fen Ditton - 149
• 9th Girton - 103

Next week we play Comberton who are comfortably 4th and can neither go up nor down. March play Cherry Hinton who need a win to make certain of promotion and NCI play Fen Ditton. So we aren't safe yet but "it's in our own hands" as the pundits say.

Back to the actual game. An inspection of the pitch lead us to the conclusion that it would be an early finish. However while there were a few balls that jumped or shot Fen Ditton batted out their full 40 overs and we used 38 in reply. I actually managed to win the toss and invited our hosts to bat. Neil Sparnon and Billy Haynes opened the bowling. Having hit the opener 3 times on the chest Neil defeated him with a full pitched ball that rearranged the furniture (feng shui'ed the readers according to Rads). Billy had three good shouts for LBW against the other opener, the last of which was given by the umpire.

Neil was storming in encouraged by the lively pitch and Billy bowled 6 tight overs, Rads having forensically examined the rule book and determined this new higher restriction.

Fen Ditton now fought back against the change bowlers, Rob Kaye and debutant Alfie Newman. It was during this phase that Dave Simmons did a nose dive over the fence on the leg side boundary. Nice try Dave, but nowhere near the comedy value of Neil's steeplechasing at Stow the other week. Alfie reeled off a very encouraging 8 over spell, picking up one wicket. Almost as encouraging was Billy's catch at slip; note to self, maybe putting someone with reflexes at slip instead of one of the old duffers might not be a bad idea!

Rob got one to slant across the leftie and jag back sharply to hit his leg stump before we switched again. Adam Wright started with two maidens but got a bit of stick later in his spell while Neil was now in full flow, pounding in and grabbing two more wickets. Billy finished off with another wicket and held his nerve well in the last overs. He combined with Alastair to get two runouts: one thrown from keeper to bowler, the other from bowler to keeper.

Fen Ditton finished on 145-9 or 145 all out if you prefer as they were one man short.

After tea we opened up with Chris Cooke and Dave Simmons. Chris was back from injury and holiday and although unable to bowl was soon into his stride batting. Dave departed for 1 but Chris was peppering the boundary with crisp drives, viscious pulls and elegant glances. Alastair smacked a couple of find boundaries before picking out mid-off with a strong drive that was taken low down and he was gone for 9: 48-2 after 16 overs.

Chris was looking untroubled and reached 50 out of 71 in the 19th over with 11 fours: one over from Andy Rabjohns yielded 4 of them. So it was something of a surprise when he was picked up by the 3rd change bowler during an over that consisted of a boundary, three wides and two wickets, the second being Paul Bradbury who had contributed a solid 0 during a stand of 23 with Chris. So 71-2 very quickly became 72-4.

The two new batsmen were Gabriel Fox and Adam Wright and together they put on 38 with some good running, and a series of fine blows by Adam. We were keeping up with the rate and when Gabriel missed a straight one (having not been given out LBW for once) we needed 36 off 10 overs.

Alfie joined Adam and the rate continued to tick over until Adam finally went for a very impressive 39 with 22 now needed off 7 overs.

This brought Neil out to join Alfie. He survived a very confident appeal for a caught behind which upset Fen Ditton somewhat. This in turn got Neal's dander up. He nearly decapitated the square leg umpire when he let go of his bat trying to pull: I ask you, is that any way to show gratitude for the not out?

[This illustrates another difference between Cricket and Baseball. A bat throwing incident often leads to both teams squaring off for some pushing and pleasentries. Even the guys on the bench stop taking steroids long enough to grab their handbags and join the fin.]

Neil then got down to the other end and smashed a couple of fours that got us in range of the target: 4 needed off 3. In the next over some quick running got us to the target with 12 balls remaining: Alfie a very commendable debut 6 not out, Neil 12.

So an excellent win in a keenly fought match between two well ballanced sides. Good fielding, tight bowling lead by Neil's 3-18 (with some superb appealing) and then a well paced run chase led by Chris and Adam with good support from the rest of the team.

See y'all at Comberton. Or we could all start practicing our rain dances as if the matches are cancelled, positions stay unchanged we are safe.