On an unexpectedly beautiful, warm, late summer afternoon, Gnomes notched up a 54 run victory at Checkendon. It was a low scoring game, on a misbehaving pitch, where the average score for both teams was less than 10.3 runs per batsman. A timed game was agreed and on winning the toss John chose to bat and sent out Ollie and Matt to open.

With help from a highly unpredictable surface, Checkendon opening pacemen, Green and Brakespeare, struck quickly and regularly, dismissing Ollie for 8, Matt for a duck (fending a length ball that was aiming for his throat) and Tom, whose total of13 included three superbly timed square cut 4s.

Mark and Max Fernie found it equally difficult to settle. Max went for 10, and Mark was run out by Chris who, skying a ball to mid-off, muttered a subdued ‘yes’ which Mark had no chance of hearing, and set off for a single. The fielder failed to reach ther ball, but Chris’s relief was short-lived as he arrived at the opposite end, having never taken his eye off the action in the field, to find Mark chatting to the keeper.

Mark left his ground, to be run out, nobly scarificing his wicket and the villain of the piece went on to make a laboured 9.

A rearguard action by Barney (18), John (Gnome top scorer on 24), Buddy Mason (23), Andy Hicks (16) and Fenton (9*) brought the score to what seemed a barely adequate 149 all out, including 18 extras. Meanwhile, Checkendon fielders suffered a number of freak injuries, which meant that, in the event, one could not bat at all, while another two were virtually immobile at the crease (but declined runners).

Checkendon are blessed with a number of fine spin bowlers and they wreaked their share of the damage. However, the state of the pitch meant that it was their pace bowlers who were most likely to cause trouble for the Gnome batsmen and it seemed sporting that the Checkendon skipper had stuck with his spinners and slower seamers, after the opening spell.

Then again, the history of this fixture, with last year’s game especially fresh in the memory, strongly suggested that 149 would not be nearly enough to defend.

Opinion had been divided as to whether the older, softer ball would deprive Gnome’s faster bowlers of the advantage Checkendon had had, but Buddy and Fenton extracted some compensatory swing and the Checkendon top five fell with similar regularity, scoring just one more run (29) than the Gnome top 5.

Of the remaining batsmen Trotter put up the most stubborn resistance.

The spirit of the game was momentarily endangered over the usual conflagatory issue of umpires lbw decisions.

When Trotter fell to Mason, having top scored with 41, Checkendon were still some way short of a hundred, and the Checkendon innings finished on 95 all out, including 10 extras. Buddy ended with 4 for 22, and Matt with 3 for 21.