SCORECARD

Squatters Rights
Old Mo 177 all out; Moseley Ashfield  178-5. Ashfield win by 5 wickets

Before the toss a significant victory was gained by the Fitmen overshadowing a pretty good win on the pitch for the 'landlords'. The early bird etc proved to be an historic moment as 3 FitKit bags were parked early in the 'home' dressing room. Would the landlords insist on eviction?

The FitCommittee quickly joined in a re-run of the Meriden Gypsy encounter and once the 3 ton 'communal kit' bag was parked on the table the job was done...........squatters rights and the use of the primary changing room was established. All else paled into insignificance on this historic day.

When the toss was also won (these things happen in 3s??) the day looked set for a clean sweep. The sun shone, a couple of strato-nimbus skudded across the Manchester city blue sky and all was well in the FitWorld.

A tricky opening spell of quick bowling was coped with by the doughty openers (Tom & Si) as they manfully wiped the shine off the cherry with straight bats. Strike Rate wasn't the objective with the two Breuilly-esque students of the openers art.

When they both went, having successfully seen off 4 overs of facing each, the stage was set fair for the boys with the big bats. The strike rate rose and Jack and Aid looked set before the former was out to a sharp slip catch on 35 and the latter had his stumps spread by a snorter. Perhaps it wouldn't all be plain sailing.
Raj and Chas dug in (for a while) to try and settle the mini collapse, but a decent catch and a run out gave the scorers the wobbles as the kitchen staff ran to put the urn on. We'd gone from a settled 60 odd for 2 to looking in danger of not making much above 3 figures in the space of half a dozen overs.

But commeth the hour etc and the serial stag party goer Ben suddenly found he could bat - and very comfortably too with a 51 ball unbeaten 29. To the credit of the tail, the overs were all used up and by the time the last couple popped in for a cameo respectability seemed assured.

The last man standing played his own version of a cover drive as he recovered from his earlier 'episode' in the Green Man car park, and the flying edge garnered him 2 precious runs. Tragically he tried the same shot again (a sort of random hockey type swish) and we retired for tea.

It was with trepidation that the news of Mother Sehdeva's temporary retirement from the pakora manufacturing process was received by the FitFeasters. Nervously the gannets sampled the product of Mrs Syd's toil...................a Cowell-esque pause.........then up went the scores, cigars all round and the pipe was lit.
Tom's delightfully light fairy cakes, lovingly baked the previous evening, went down a treat whilst the over supply of ham sandwiches (please.........get a grip: more egg and cress)  helped soak up Johnny Youngsters excesses.

The division bell (what a treat) signalled the assault to defend 177. The opposition had different ideas and climbed in to the bowling. The Fit Openers had a fairly torrid time as the frontal assault threatened to finish the match early but stuck to their difficult task with Syd maintaining his composure (and his strength by reducing his already meagre trot up).

A hat- trick of catches from Jack and a smart one from Raj, threatened to de rail the reply and when their dangerous striker was out for 68 a chink of light appeared. The anticipated collapse didn't materialise and despite the efforts of the Ben and Joe in particular the target was relatively comfortably chased down.

Fielding was good, the pitch was probably too good and with hindsight we may have needed a further 30 odd runs to put the result in doubt. A stiffer late middle order resolve was the order of the day, but encouragingly the top order produced and the tail wagged.

Onwards and Upwards etc.