Singing in the Rain

The last game of the season; after a wonderful summer with barely a drop of rain and more drought orders than the summer of ’76 clearly the gods could only deliver a balmy evening to round it off. Sadly your correspondent is an atheist and those accursed gods delivered miserable driving rain.

Inspired by the lovely weather and a sense of proper contrariness the squad, of course, rushed to make themselves available leaving the Chairman (Williams) with his only selection conundrum of the season. The best team of the season was the clear result.

Now far be it for your correspondent to criticise the Bar but as usual they couldn’t be trusted to turn up on time whilst the CW boys turned up nice and early for a change (if only they could manage this during the rest of the season) and so the barristers were put into bat.

Despite the driving rain and the gloomy conditions Dropper was not going to give any quarter and he opened the bowling with Burton and Ringer A who bowled with aggression and no small amount of precision. Ringer A was helped bowling up the hill with some wicked bounce out of the wet pitch and the Chairman was soon diving all over the place trying to stop the ball with his usual level of success (i.e. not much).

Burton whipped out an opener with a snorter fended to gully (where the catch was well taken by Wright) before Ringer B (Taylor M) was brought on at first change. The Chairman had clearly worked out that he has lost at least a yard of pace and decided to stand up to him. This was to prove to be a very sensible choice as he picked up a stumping much to Ringer B’s chagrin.
Ringer B was not on particularly sporting mood when the 13 year old came into bat and cleaned him up first ball.

The skipper tried a couple of overs but with a very wet ball he just bowled some rank beamers.
Meanwhile Chiffers and Earl were making an absolute dog’s dinner of trying to make catches on the boundary. Chiffers’ chance was at least somewhat challenging (it came down with snow on it) whilst Earl just made an absolute dog’s dinner of his very simple chance.

Webb was brought on very late in the day on a hat-trick. He made the rather odd choice of bowling a rank long hop at one of their most culture batsman. A ploy of some genius astonishingly as he promptly put it down Ringer A’s throat for a well thought out hat-trick, congratulations.

Earl and the Chairman combined nicely for a wicket (well the Chairman made a dog’s ear of the catch but held on) and Earl decided not to bother with his help and bowled another.
In one of the more sporting moments of the year the skipper decided to bring back Burton at the death who bowled a brilliant over just missing the outside edge 5 times.

Having restricted them to 66 for 6 off their 15 overs it was apparent that it was CW’s match to throw away. The tried and trusted Webb/Williams opening combo was trusted again and Webb did his best to make a game of it by playing round a straight ‘un from the 13 year old. The Chairman decided to get aggressive and smashed two lovely square cuts whilst trying to avoid laughing at Ringer B’s antics at umpire. Meanwhile Earl as usual gave it some long handle and quickly retired bringing Wright to the middle.

With the crowd baying for the Chairman’s wicket (or at least to ensure he didn’t hit the winning runs (an honour he has singularly failed to achieve in 10 season’s for the firm)) he did the decent thing and let Wright take the honour and win the game with 6 overs to spare.

Whilst not a close match it was played in a fantastic spirit and was enjoyed by all, as evidenced by the drinking afterwards into the early hours. The discussions re the intricacies of dogging were particularly illuminating for your correspondent.

Man of the Match? A difficult decision, Earl was clearly in the running as was Ringer B but in the end the heart won out and Webb got the nod for completing his hat-trick and trying to make a game of it (by getting out cheaply).

Batting

Webb Bwld. Edwards Jnr. 2
Williams Not Out 21
Earl Not Out 27
Wright Not Out 6
Extras (8W, 4NB, 3B) 15

Total 70 for 1

Ringer A, Welch, Burton, Holt, Chiffers, Ringer B, Thomas did not bat

Bowling

Burton 3-0-10-1
Ringer A 2-0-8-0
Ringer B 2-0-10-2
Welch 2-0-17-0
Thomas 2-0-11-0
Webb 2-1-6-1
Earl 2-0-8-2