Report by Toby Reynolds:
As with most of the last decade's fixtures, FAS vs Fladbury began with a weary trip to the pub. The mix of sore bodies and heads turned up at the Chequers Inn in dribs and drabs, before the focus turned to the cricket.
Mike Harrop successfully won the toss and elected to bat, immediately commanding his rabble of youths to pad up. Despite the idea that gritty red ball cricket was dying with the younger generations, it was more FazBall than BazBall, with the FAS flying to 7/0 after 6 overs.
Reynolds (Toby) and the youngest Crossley fell cheaply, but a 90-run partnership between Will Crossley and George Bradford steadied the ship before opening the sails. The partnership took advantage of bowling changes and made headway during the middle overs. Having crawled to 5 off 26 balls, Crossley motored to 65 off 74 balls, before being caught looking to continue his expansive play.
Will was replaced by the eldest of the Crossleys, Ed, who plundered 39 off 30 balls against a loose and tiring Fladbury attack. The skipper followed suit with a quick-fire 11 (off 7 balls) before Justin Bradford came out to join his son in the final overs.
Bradford Jr's fine knock helped the FAS up to 216/5 from their 35 overs, and his 66* was critical in the imposing total. However, he looked more like turgid Dom Sibley than prime Jos Buttler at the death, opting to block the final ball of the innings to maintain his red-inker.
Fladbury’s innings never quite got going, with the mix of Crossleys, Miltons and Whites suffocating the village side. The new ball pair of Oscar Milton and Joe White picked up a wicket each before Will Crossley continued to not let anyone else have a game. His three-fer included the prominent Dave Prudden for 47 in comical circumstances: he fired in a yorker, which hit Prudden plum on the toe, bang in front; when questioned as to why the umpire didn't raise his finger, he stated that he thought the batter got a faint inside edge; it was then pointed out that the ball was smartly caught at slip by Bradford Sr, leading to the umpire changing his decision. However, Prudden stood his ground, saying he did not get an edge, just to be told that he was therefore out LBW.
Chris Barras yet again proved his worth behind the stumps, with two sharp grabs of the opening bowlers, before an exquisite leg-side stumping gave Will Crossley his third (his 99th dismissal for FAS).
Frosty continued his streak of TFCs, managing to pull more hamstrings than short balls. But as always threw himself around in the field.
The hosts needed well over a hundred from the final ten, when they did decide to finally start chasing. Harrop added to his FAS points tally with a brace of wickets, foxing both batters in the flight, while Reynolds picked up one at the death with a vicious short-ba . . . [insert tripe to mask the reality of a long hop slapped to cover].
The FAS wrapped up a commanding 71-run win on familiar Fladbury turf, before returning to the Chequers Inn with the opposition: same pub; same result; same sore limbs.
Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Arriving at Temple Grafton today we were greeted with a purple carpet of borage, more magnificent than ever before, a fact confirmed objectively by official court photographer Faruk. For a while it seemed just as well that there was something to look at as the two-tonne ride-on roller ran out of fuel roughly in the spot where the 'keeper would stand. We found some spare fuel but there was too much air in the system to keep the engine running; and even with Hal exerting his full brake horse power we couldn't make it budge. In the end our salvation came in the form of DK's truck, equipped with both enough power and the right gear to tow the roller off the ground. There was a brief chance of further drama when it briefly seemed Dave might trap his own vehicle in behind the roller, but unfortunately he was too clever for that.
With only 30-odd overs to face we weren't in much danger of being bowled out; but to chase 186 in that time was going to take something quite remarkable . . . which was what we got in the form of FAS's best ever cousinly(?) partnership between Dares Hal and Jamie, playing his 50th FAS game. Following a 0 and 1 at number three on the first two days of the Supermajority, Hal had repeatedly turned down the opportunity of opening today, only for Harry to convince him by reminding him of his half-century here last year. This time around Hal did better, adding some measured defensive strokes to his more familiar Bearsball, defined primarily by brutally clubbed sixes. We got four of these today, the most destructive of which smashed the brake light on the car belonging to the partner of one of the TG players who'd just dropped by the ground to sub field for a few overs - no good deed goes unpunished. After Hal was dismissed (for a superb 61 off 48 balls, which included his 500th FAS run), Jamie Houlder joined his namesake and consolidated beautifully with a partnerhip of controlled aggression - which would be a charitable way to describe TG's team-level reaction when an LBW appeal against Jamie H was turned down, primarily on the grounds that he'd come down so far that the ball had been intercepted 9-10 feet in front of the stumps. TG were more materially unlucky when the easiest of the several chances the Jamies gave went straight into - and out of - the hands of a still malfunctioning Tommy Dare, now reluctantly sub-fielding while the car damage was sorted out.
By the time we reached 164/2 in the 28th over we had 21 balls to score 23 runs, surely a doddle with two set batters at the crease . . . at which point we suffered a collapse of 3/9 and the equation had become a considerably more difficult 13 needed off 9 with two new batters. After a couple of scampered singles it had become 9 needed off 3 and we definitely need a big hit - which Cliff (9* off 5 balls) provided in his uniquely wristy style, depositing the ball way over the longest boundary. That meant we were ahead of the required rate for the first time all innings, and TG were surely resigned to Cliff stealing another game from them . . . at which point we entered bizarro world. With one needed to tie - or at least level the scores, since we'd have had to be all out for a tie - Cliff didn't even attempt to hit the next ball, subsequently claiming the standing umpire (Hal!) should have called it a wide - certainly TG's 14-year-old 'keeper had to move a long way to her right to prevent byes. No matter, still one more ball to . . . nope, that was just patted back to the bowler, and we went closer to a pointless run out than to complete the tieing run, as Cliff crabbed down the pitch before returning to his ground in the manner of a military transport plane which has had its take-off clearance revoked.
A fabulously dramatic game in stunning surroundings thus ended up with members of both sides enjoying post-match beers at the ground - except for Tommy, that is, who finally had some lunch: four slices of plain buttered bread.