Good, that means we can concentrate on the league

Romance of the Cup? Bah, humbug. With an impressive ruthlessness, Coton dispensed with the distractions of the Junior Cup at the first opportunity by losing what looked like an unloseable game against NCI 5th XI on Parker's Piece on Sunday June 5th. Having dispatched NCI 4th in impressive fashion at the same venue last Summer, it should have been a comfortable outing against their younger sibling and certainly looked that way as our "Fire in Babylon" roster of pacemen kept the NCI score below three an over for almost their whole innings. Matt did everything but take a wicket, but Dan (2/11), Ullasa (1/35, the wicket coming off his first ball, and what a mess he made of the stumps!) and especially Ross (4/38) cashed in. NCI did break away a little in the last few overs to push up to 147/8 from 40 overs, some 20 more than had looked likely earlier. And we were rather more generous than we should have been, with 29 extras, including 2.5 extra overs of wides - second top scorer behind the opener who crafted a very patient 52. But 148 should have been well in range, so it was truly an impressive effort of will to ensure that we came up 20 short.

Having praised our resolve it is only fair to report that there was some doubt at the end as to whether we would actually pull it off. The start was everything we could have expected with the now familiar departure of Gabriel in the first over and then a rapid procession of others treading the same path to leave us 10/4 after a handful of overs. Ross and Al then did what they usually do and scored runs, but, creditably, somewhat less than they usually do, both departing for 23. Dan had an impressive knock for 20, but with the score at 93/8, it certainly looked like everything had gone perfectly to plan - an enjoyable afternoon out, some good bowling practice and no more Cup anxieties to side-track our assault on the league title. We even let Rads leave early to ensure that we would not have a full complement of 1 batsmen. But then, alarmingly, Scotch joined Matt at the crease and things began to go horribly wrong. As the runs kept flowing, many of the NCIers began to look distinctly worried - they had very obviously turned up with an intention to win, poor souls. Eventually, with Matt on 20 and Scotch on 7, the dastardly duo attempted one run too many and at 128/9 the curtain came down on proceedings - to the huge surprise and relief of NCI who were expecting a number 11 to emerge from the hutch.

With that nuisance out the way, all our attention is now focused back on the league where it belongs. How we will work out the excuses for subsequent league defeats remains to be seen.