Stonor v WCC 19th April

Stonor 181-3 dec.

WCC  97-7

Match Drawn

This is not as lame as it looks. We actually bowled very well, hitting our lines and lengths a good three months earlier than usual. But a racehorse trainer, one J. Hunt, playing his first game for Stonor, made a brilliant 108, doing some unpleasant damage to our figures in a brutal late assault - under Jockey Club rules he'd have been fined for 'excessive use of the whip' but cricket's not fair like that sadly.

Fortunately, the Weekenders bowling stats don't appear to have been copied into the book, although someone's written mine in (8-0-34-1) which was lovely of them; and it looks like Brockis and NJ took a catch each which was smashing of them, too. I'll chase the oppo for the other figures. I'm pretty sure there were 8 spilled catches in all, including a hat-trick of drops off the bowling of Lyons, but these details will only survive in shared myth and folk song even if I do find the bowling figures.

The WCC innings had its moments, too, and had our supporter not been asleep in the car she would have been enthralled by a thundering 59 from Brockis, ended, once again unfairly, by a nine year-old boy. NJ nurdled a clever 22 and Hudson blocked sturdily at the end to avoid defeat.

WCC 97-7 (37 overs)

Lee 0, NJ 22, Brockis 59, Wahi 5, Black 0, Hudson 0*, Bailey 0, Dunne 3, Lyons 3*. DNB Douglas, Orwell d'Inverno.

The day was also memorable for the appearance of Steve Dunne's fifth novel 'A Killing Moon'  ('Crime writing at its best')