Report by Daniel Mortlock:
A rare bright spot in the bleak pre-tour landscape of fixture carnage was provided by Nigel's message saying that his mate at Eynsham CC would be interested in putting out a side against us. After we managed to convince them that we also field sides of mixed strength, the fixture was confirmed - and then almost immediately faced with the threat of being a wash out. Following the exchange of lots of "fingers crossed" type messages that rested more on the mythical Eynsham "micro-climate" than anything more substantive, we passed the "go/no go" time with no rain and so headed south-east - possibly further in this direction than FAS vehicles have gone (except when heading back to London post-tour). We arrived to find a fabulous set-up: club house with bar; two grounds; and even an on-going croquet tournament. And, more importantly, the covers were off and the pitch was being prepared: game on!
Said game was meant to be 30 overs a side, but shortened to 25 to account for the likelihood of rain at some point. Batting first against a completely unknown opposition at an unfamiliar ground it wasn't at all clear what sort of total would be a par score, although whatever expectations we might have had were soon down-graded when Eynsham's opening bowler, C. Parker, castled Tom Reynolds (0 off 3 balls) with a perfect out-swinger that clipped the top off the off stump and then twice beat number three Daniel Mortlock with similar deliveries. Parker's opening partner was even more miserly, starting with two maidens, and with two balls left in the 6th over we were absolutely stuck on 6/1.
The Eynsham skipper then took mercy on us, with bowling changes at both ends, after which scoring became considerably easier. Our surviving opener Jim Streeter (13 off 17 balls) smashed consecutive boundaries before nicking off and then Tom Reynolds, possibly motivated by trying to impress his attendant girlfriend, teed off with some fantastic pulls. Helped by some free hits following no balls, Daniel and Tom took us to an almost respectable 89/2 after 16 overs, at which point the predicted rain took the players from the ground.
It would have been very easy at this point to have called off the game and retreated to the bar, but Eynsham were adamant that the rain would pass and so it turned out, and after a half hour break we headed back out. With the lost time we sensibly opted to shorten the game further to 20 overs, and so the incumbent batters had to forgo the luxury of getting used to conditions again, and Tom predictably perished, bowled for a superb 43 (off 29 balls). Jamie Dare (9* off 9 balls) and Daniel (43* off 55 balls, 20% of which came from free hits) hauled us inelegantly to a final total of 115/3.
We then had a historic first application of the Duckworth-Lewis formula in FAS cricket, meaning Eynsham's 20-over target was increased to a potentially challenging 129 to win. Just how challenging soon became clear as Jamie Dare proved even more of a handful than the Eynsham openers, finishing his opening spell with figures of 2 overs, 2 maidens, 1/0. With Zoe Dare (0/16), Joe White (2/19) and Daniel Mortlock (1/10, his 13th consecutive wicket-taking spell, breaking WTB's FAS record) all economical as well, we achieved a surely winning position with Eynsham restricted to 30/3, meaning they needed 98 runs from 72 balls.
The Eynsham batters did start to accelerate, which seemed to induce Cliff, skippering, to decide that the contest between bat and ball wasn't getting his competitve juices flowing sufficiently, and what was needed were a few side-battles. First up was a power-play with 'keeper Nigel Reynolds, who was standing back to Joe; Cliff demanded he come up to the stumps to which Nigel said that he'd decide where to stand . . . after which he donned a helmet and came up to the stumps entirely by choice. Next up was Scarlet Streeter, hanging out in the distant pavilion and not obviously taking too much notice of the cricket; she was instructed to update the score "Every. Over." which she did . . . until she didn't. Things then reached a flash-point following what was possible the single most "village" cricket of the whole tour:
Or maybe don't calm down, as various FAS players are remonstrating with anyone available about that second overthrow. It's claimed that it's a dead ball (which it isn't) and then we enter into the murky "spirit of cricket" waters from which it's difficult to emerge.
The main result of all this wasn't the 3 runs, but the sudden pall of darkness over the game that matched the overhead conditions. In particular, Cliff was now fully activated and responded by bringing Jamie back on next over - he was, as one of the umpires pointed out, a bit too quick given the now gloomy conditions. Despite the fact that we would probably have gone onto win - Eynsham needed 47 from 30 balls at this point - it was probably fortunate that rain came again, this time with decisive effect. There were some fundamentally pointless efforts to claim a D/L win, but they soon evaporated over beers and post-cricket chat at the bar and hopefully the fixture becomes a regular part of FAS tours.