Blushes spared by the Borrowash Balzac

HIT OR MISS 150-9 (dec. 42 overs)

WCC 72

Hit or Miss won by 78 runs

An opening stand of 60 by the hosts on a difficult batting surface was the principal difference between the two sides. Dunne and Cooper managed to exploit conditions when they got the chance and d'Inverno impressd with three neat pouches at mid-off but the early advantage had been surrendered. The skipper tried to frustrate the home side's acceleration with a ring of fire but it proved to be more of an electric blanket set to 'medium'. The offside field was impenetrable only in the literary sense, comprising as it did Dunne, Bailey and Douglas, and the runs continued to flow. 78 too many as it turned out. The Weekenders batting, Toby Lyons, Dibley and Cooper excepted, plumbed Gorky-esque depths.

Dunne's new thriller 'Deity' is flying out of bookstores faster than a Weekender in pusuit of a mini scotch egg rolling off a teatable. But reviewers of this pulsating page-turner have so far failed to spot the possibly libellous naming of two slow-witted detective constables, Smee and Read. The fragile unity of the team is holding but it can only be a matter of time.

HIT OR MISS 150-9

Douglas 11-3-32-2,  Dibley 8-1-25-0, Dunne 13-2-44-4,  Lyons J 7-0-31-1,  Cooper 3-1-3-2

Catches: d'Inverno 3, Smee 1.

WCC  72

Wahi 0, Lyons T 13, Dibley 28, Cooper 18, Marshall 0, Bailey 1, Smee 0, Dunne 7, Douglas 1, Lyons J. 0*, d'Inverno 0

Clarke followed his 6 for 19 last year with a tidy 5-5-0-3