Sadly no match report was written for this game so our hardworking webmaster has to make something up. Maybe it was because we lost when we should have won. Maybe we really did miss the batting and captaincy skills of Quentin. In fact I know that Sam took the loss so badly he never captained an OUCCC side again. The number one rule when playing on a St Johns track is to win the toss and bat first because there will always be a lot of runs. Since the oppo were initially short of players Sam agreed to let them bat first. Wiesner, as ever, bowled superbly with the new pill, while Pete despite extracting good swing was punished whenever he dropped short. Matt Benson replaced him to bowl extremely tightly. Unfortunately the breakthrough wicket didn't arise and when the bowling change inevitable came both Sam and James were slaughtered. Thrown into panic Sam used multiple bowling changes but could not stem the flow of runs and failed to call in the spin bowler (was there one?) which was clearly needed. They ended up with 270 off 40 overs with us giving them 50 extras! Thankfully we were given respectability in our chase first by Chalky and then a partnership of 111 between Matt and David Jones which saw us through to 182/3 after 29 overs. Sadly with both their departures in quick succession the middle and lower order collapsed under the pressure of 9 runs an over as their slow spin (right arm pie) bowler took 5 wickets. Our Captain was left at the end with one last chance but blew it as the last man out. So ended the era of Dean.
SD