Report by Daniel Mortlock:
We had all the basic ingredients for a game of cricket - a ground and 22 fit (or at least uninjured) players - but the slight conundrum that they were all of the FAS variety. Clearly an internal game was on the cards, but this time with a twist: a "T/20 Test" with both sides playing two 20-over innings. Thus Joss's Jousters and Cliff's Concubines made FAS history.
Fielding first, the Concubines dominated initially, reducing the Jousters to 35/6 in the 14th over, with Jamie Dare (3/8), Dilshan de Silva (1/4), Tom "Devon" Reynolds, aka "Curtley" (1/8) and James Wyatt (1/7) all contributing. The Jousters then made something of a recovery thanks to the previously unheralded batting combination of Joe White (27 off 27 balls) and Ben Kittow (16 off 18 balls), before both were removed by Harry Houlder (2/11), with Ben stumped by father Dave. The Jousters' final tally of 85/8 wasn't much - but at least there was the chance of a second innings redemption.
The Jousters did take a few early wickets thanks to Zoe Dare (2/26), but after that it was pretty comfortable going for the Concubines, who passed the Jousters' total in the 15th over, thanks to Jim Streeter (39 off 52 balls) and Dave Kittow (43 off 31 balls). Joe White (2/12) did take a couple of late wickets, but it wasn't enough to prevent the Concubines establishing a surely match-winning lead of 49.
Still, the Jousters didn't give up, with Cliff Dare (30, bizarrely batting for the opposition) and James Houlder (45) first avoiding the embarrassment of an innings loss and then trying to set some sort of target. Good bowling by Daniel Mortlock (1/5), Tom "London" Reynolds (1/11) and Dilshan (3/13) was sufficient to preserve the Concubines' advantage and in the end the Jousters were only able to set a target of 63.
The expectation was that the now Cliff-less Concubines would knock off the runs in short time, but then a strange thing happened: the batters stopped scoring and the bowlers started taking wickets, led by Tom Hall with a fantastic spell of 3/7. Still, it was clear that the Concubines had inverted their batting order somewhat, with several big guns left in reserve. The critical moment was when James Wyatt arrived at the crease with a FAS batting record which couldn't even be called "Bradmanesque": 1009 runs at an average of 144.14 with 5 fifties and 5 centuries from just 19 innings. Facing up to 13-year-old Zoe Dare Wyatty started conservatively, defending forward with bat and pad together . . . but the ball swung in and hit his pad, probably in line but he'd got a decent stride in- or not: umpire Geoff Hales ruminated and then raised his finger, a gesture that would go down in FAS lore and be mentioned for decades to come. The Concubines were as fatally rattled as the Jousters were bouyant, and Joe (2/12) and Cliff (1/4) somehow completed the miracle of a four-run win defending 62, easily the lowest target successfully defended in club history.