A very green and under prepared wicket encouraged skipper Sven Jorn Dunthorne to insert the opposition after winning the toss on Saturday. This Hussainian (Nasser not Saddam) decision appeared justified when Isa Guha, the 18 year old England bowler had Shepperton's opener brilliantly caught by Chris Lear off her second ball. Shepperton's South African pro 'Jappie' then hit a quick 52? to rapidly recover their position. Steady bowling from Isa, Anton and Matt could not initially stem the flow of runs until the legendary Chris (Gianfranco) Gill produced a devastating spell of bowling 9 overs, 3 wickets for 21 runs. Isa Guha came back for a second spell and finished with 4 for ?? and cameo bowling performances by John Bracken, Chris Lear and Izzie Cannon restricted the total to 178 all out. Tom Godfrey caught 3 catches and dropped a sitter.

The reason for a late request by the Shepperton skipper for a second new ball became apparent when Jappie and A. Hahn opened with a lively attack after tea. The experience of Sven and the obvious talent of Surrey Colt Max struggled against regular Middlesex League bowlers. After their departure England's Claire Taylor and Tom Godfrey were able to steady the ship but never dominate and Gnomes decided that they should try giving the opposition some catching practice. Disaster struck when Tom top-edged a ball into his nose - he insisted on continuing but the only fluency he found was generally of the red variety. Wickets continued to fall including the most unfortunate dismissal of your 'webmaster' whose freak run-out prevented what obviously would have been a match-winning innings. Matt and the two Chris's showed that striking boundaries was possible and John Bracken kindly kept Anton company in the duck stakes. With Isa and Issy at 10 and 11 Gnome's capitulated in the most graceful way imagineable.

After much discussion Gnome's awarded the 'Champagne Moment' to the home umpire who had stoically stood at the bowler's end throughout the match wearing a Gnome sweater purloined some years ago from Lord Lyn Lewis of Shepperton. The friendliness and hospitality of the home side helped to cheer up a disconsolate team who were of the single view that 'we'll come back and wup 'em next year'. All please note!

In an unprecedented statement after the match the Board of Lord Gnome CC International inc announced their backing for new player/manager Sven Jorn Dunthorne:

' We have every confidence in him - the team is looking much more attractive - we recognize that the new formation will take a little while to bed down but we fully expect to be playing in Europe (St Aulaye) by August…..'