Report by Daniel Mortlock:
In conditions described by the (unknown) scorer as "hot", the Bunnies predictably chose to bat first upon winning the toss. Not that they really did much with their good fortunate: while their number 3, H. Bengham, made a superb 71*, no other Bunny scored more than 20, and their scoring rate never got much above three an over. This was in part down to tight, if unpenetrative, spells from Joe White (0/14) and Tom Hall (1/14) with the new ball, but we only really got on top of the game when we took the pace off the ball, as Jamie Scott (2/16) and Joss Dare (3/5) went through the Bunnies' like a dose of myxomatosis.
Our opening pair of Freddie Burnett (2 off 2 balls) and Sasha Barras (2 off 22 balls) seemed deterimined to play tribute to the recently retired Richie Benaud, but didn't progress our chase significantly. Fortunately, it didin't matter, as by the time Sasha was dismissed at the end of the 9th over we were already a third of the way to our target. This was solely down to some incredible batting by Jim Streeter, who was flying on 45* off 29 balls and seemed set to go to remarkable century before before Matt Siebert got him LBW. Still, Jim was no doubt satisfied with a remarkable innings of 92 from 57 balls, with 17 fours and 2 sixes, one of the most destructive FAS innings on record. That left plenty of time for Tom Hall (24* off 24 balls) and Howard Jones (20* off 6 balls, seemingly inspired by Jim) to knock off the remaining runs with dismissive ease.
Report by Daniel Mortlock:
FAS enjoyed a completely dominant performance against Fladbury today, winning by "just" 8 wickets only because of the efforts of the Fladbury opener James Martin, whose 106* dominated their first-innings total of 198/9 - their second highest score was just 14. The flip-side of this was that most of our players had a great time of it: Harry Houlder (5/20), George Houghton (2/32), Fraser Houlder (1/26) and Rob Harvey (1/16) all took wickets; and James Houlder (102*), Harry (31) and George (52*) all made runs for fun.
It might be tempting to feel sorry for the Fladbury players, but that would be to ignore the even worse day Daniel Mortlock had. In the first innings he was for some reason allowed to bowl his full allotment of 10 overs, taking no wickets while being smashed for 53 runs. As if by way of compensation, he was then given the coveted number three slot, which he defiled by playing one of the worst innings in club history. Faced with the left-arm spin of Fladbury's S. Guy, Daniel was so at sea that, after a few balls of wild flailing, non-striker James Houlder came down the wicket to give him some instructions (basically: watch the ball from the hand). The result of this was that Daniel was bowled next ball, through the most enormous of gates between bat and pad, for a four-ball duck. Taken in isolation, Daniel's match return (0/53, no catches and a duck) was the second worst performance in club history; but it was even more dismal in the context of today's otherwise dominant FAS showing, with the rest of the team combining to take 9 wickets at 12.44 with the ball and then averaging 185.00 with the bat.