Monday’s game exemplified this fixture’s reputation for inscrutable outcomes, nerve-jangling tension, and vertiginous drama of a kind to leave even the most sanguine of captains breathing into a paper bag. Having agreed a 40-over match, and planning an insertion, on a dampish, green wicket, Captain Dunthorne lost the toss and Gnome went in to bat, the skipper himself opening the innings with guest, Max Ferney, a tutored and stylish young left-hander. The two batted steadily, although at a less-than-prodigious scoring rate, amassing 46 for the first wicket.

Perhaps it is a consequence of the greater number of overs games we now play, but scoring rate emerged as one of the main debating topics of the weekend, and the topic was still under active discussion throughout the innings of Simon Fox, who, while second top-scoring on 42, nevertheless – some felt – eschewed a few scoring opportunities in favour of defending his wicket with the resoluteness one might expect of such a classy, league-calibre batsman.

Then again, perhaps it was prescience on Simon’s part, as the succeeding three wickets – those of Tom Godfrey, Mark Feltham and Andrew Ramroop – fell for a combined total of 5 runs.

Enter the previous day’s centurion, John Butterworth, with another superbly judged innings. Supported by a sequence of positive batting from Finneran (16), Ramsahoye (ditto) and Gill (7*), Butters scored briskly while conscientiously shepherding the innings into its final over. He was caught at long on, two runs short of his fifty, off a skied attempt at a six.

This late acceleration in the scoring gave Gnome what had seemed an unlikely 200+ platform.

With a target of 203 to win, Windrush opened their reply with Colin Weston and P Colmer.

Seeing off the first spell of Gnome openers Finneran and Ramsahoye, these two went on to establish a very fruitful opening partnership of 84, the breakthrough coming when Colmer was caught at deep mid-off by Dunthorne, from a Gill full toss.

Gnome found it difficult to build on this stroke of fortune. Weston went on to notch up the game’s highest score of 71 (surviving a dropped attempted c&b by Gill, on the way) and was supported by a sequence of big-hitting cameo performances, which steadily nudged the Windrush score ever closer to the Gnome total. In fact Windrush looked odds-on to reach the target, until an over from Butters in which his steady off-spin took three wickets.

Windrush skipper, Long, then reasserted his side’s intentions, but the longer the game went on, the more difficult it became to predict the outcome, with Windrush wickets falling as steadily as the runs were mounting.

In what has become the customary dramatic climax to this fixture, with Windrush needing seven runs to win, veteran left-hander Bob Parker arrived at the crease, to face the 40th and final over from an out-of-sorts Gill, bowling up the hill.

The first two deliveries were dot balls, delivered more or less to Parker’s off stump.

The third, while on a reasonable length, strayed on to the middle stick and was summarily carted over the square boundary.

With the scores level at 202 and three balls still to be delivered, on perhaps the most difficult pitch in the Gnome fixture card on which to defend, the odds now strongly favoured Windrush.

However, Gnome nerves held. The remaining three deliveries were all outside off stump and thus Parker – a pony of few tricks – was unable even to lay bat on ball.

There was the predictable attempted scamper for a bye off the final delivery, but keeper Godfrey coolly returned the ball to the bowler’s end, where Gill removed the bails.

In all, a characteristically breathless affair, resulting in only the third tied game in the history of the club.