Played 1 Won 2

A belated first game of the season for the Thursday night team, played here at The Croft, on a Friday- naturally. When Jonny moved the game to a friday, he must have been privy to a long range weather forecast suggesting it would eventually stop raining 36 days after the hosepipe ban came into force. Inter Allsorts were the intended victim, and Jonny was initially faced with a selection dilemna when 15 people wanted to play. Thankfully he was spared having to tell Bomber he was dropped, as Bomber pulled out with "housewives knee" earlier in the day. Nigel succumbed to cat flu, and with some natural wastage, we achieved a "perfect" 11. After so much rain it was important to adjust to the conditions, and for IA this initially meant they should stop asking where the goalposts were. We agreed a test match format of 2 innings per team, and IA, although they seemed to have some players with performance enhancing gizmos on their ankles, only scored 22 in their first effort, which they seemed quite pleased with, until they were reminded about the lack of goalposts. Jonny led from the front with 3 wickets, but star performer was Simon with a hatrick and 4 wickets from his 2 overs- rumour is that he's a shoe in for the National Village team now. Tebsy took a wicket on debut too which alone was worth his annual membership fee.

So deeply unimpressed werre Moreton with the target of 22, that they declared their first innings without bothering to go out, thus asking IA to bat again with a lead of just 22. A few new bowlers, encouraged by the opportunity to gain valuable fantasy cricket points, stepped up to the crease, and Dave T picked up a couple, and even The Landlord bagged a "collectors item" wicket. IA managed 34 at the second attempt, with one of their players having the dubious distinction of getting out 3 times in the evening.

So a target of 57 to win was set, and the big guns stepped out for Moreton; both were dropped early, and whilst Ed perished soon after, Tim eventually conjured some runs from his Mongoose, top scoring with 17. Ashton couldn't contain himself, with such an easy opportunity to cash in on some mediocre bowling, and he duly got himself a duck. Simon looked quite relaxed at the crease, and even found time to send a mass email whilst at the wicket, telling everyone how good viagra is for him. It was left to Jonny & Kaz to calmly finish off the thrashing-both undefeated in double figures.

The new scoreboard coped well with the flurry of wickets, but, of course, we still don't know if it will register 3 figures.

Next week Cuxham away