SCORECARD

Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad!

Mermaids 117-6, Old Moseley Arms Fitmen 119-6

The third match of the almost back-to-back series saw the Fitmen return to winning ways after the previous night’s defeat to the Village Campanologists. We welcomed our old friends and sparring partners the Mermaids to the Graveyard on a humid but grey evening, with the midges out in force, looking for blood in the manner of accident claims phone operatives.

As it is tradition for the visiting captain to make the call at the coin toss, no liability could be imposed upon Fitman captain for the evening, Rob Green, for having to bowl first. With a bowling line-up of Waseem, Ian Timms, Rob Nutt, Juma, Fraz and Dave Moore, confidence was high that this would not be too much of a concern, and so it transpired to be.

Waseem and Timms opened up the bowling and with accurate tight lines, the scoring rate was kept well below 4 an over, with wickets falling regularly, however, the Mermaids No 4 was batting with confidence, capitalising on anything loose in the middle overs. 2 wickets for Juma, Waseem and Nutt, backed up by a solid fielding performance restricted Mermaids to what was felt to be a gettable 117-6 by the end of the 20 overs.

Losing Tucker early on was a blow, but Rob Green scratched around and Gavin Hall batted with fluency and power to take the score to 49 after 9 overs. Sam Moore, and Juma then accompanied Hall past his 50, but then with tight bowling and three quick wickets falling, there were 21 runs needed from the final three overs. A couple of boundaries settled the nerves, but there were still 13 runs needed off the final two overs. Enter Brother Nutt, who with 8 runs off 4 balls, brought the Fitmen to within 2 runs of the target; then with his first ball faced Waseem struck the ball clean back over the bowler’s head for the winning boundary from the penultimate ball.

A fine all-round performance by everyone present, whose contributions with either bat, ball, or behind the stumps, led to the victory. So, once the covers had been rolled on, it was back to Steve’s bar in the fading light for a convivial beer and to share memories and anecdotes, whilst watching the pipistrelles performing aerial acrobatics and feasting on the aforementioned blood-sucking midges (and by proxy, on the Fitmen themselves!).

• Special mention too for Ian Timms, for mastering the mysteries of the scorebook on debut