As soon as the fixture list came out there were 2 questions on everyone’s mind. When is the Shoreham game and will we finally have a home game at the end of the season? The answers were last Saturday and no.

So far our record at the toss has been poor with 1 win unfortunately resulting in 1 loss. The odds as we approached the toss were as much in our favour as they were against (using the standard rules of probability) and with heads called, heads it was. On a hot day we will bat first. What could go wrong?

Well, as you ask, the first thing to go wrong was the annoying skipper allowing them a sub fielder when it shouldn’t have been allowed (as informed by Jerry after the match), secondly Lewis got out to his third ball and thirdly Noel, fresh off a 97, chipped one up to silly mid on in the 4th over. At least I won the toss though.

With Dan and Benj both out in the middle early it was important to consolidate and a lovely 50 run partnership developed fairly quickly with Benj gliding to 33 from 38 balls without really middling any (according to Benj, to the skipper who has not middled one in 5-6 years there were quite a few that sounded pretty middled). Ball 39 and a glorious step across and a flourish of the bat saw the ball absolutely middled, 3 inches above the ground going for fo…..straight into the hands of their mid wicket. Not to worry with a long batting order lets consolidate and build another partnership, we can recover from 65-3. Next over bowler runs in, with Dan on strike, and sends one down legside that ricochets off the keeper’s pad and back on to the stumps. Out in the unluckiest of ways although according to their scorer it was a jaffa that bowled him and according to their umpire it was not a wide. Confusing.

At 65-4 we were in a spot of bother and with the departures of Westy and Pep for ducks it was down to Miles from Dubai to dig us out of the toss winning shaped hole we had found ourselves in. Supported by the unnamed keeper and skipper (before the plucky legend was dropped by the fielder who then flicked it back up with his foot, juggled it a bit and then finally caught it) Milo plundered the ball to all parts of the ground with some lovely stroke making intertwined with some brute force amassing a score of 46 from 37 balls. In reality Milo probably brought up his 50 but as happened last year their scorer got in a complete mess resulting in the game being held up for 20 minutes whilst we all tried to piece together what had happened. In all likelihood we probably won the game.

After Miles was out Simon and Jon looked to put on some runs at the end before Simon had a swing and a miss departing for 9 with Ollie following soon after. Jon ended on 10 not out with E.Xtras struggling to their lowest score of the season with 18 if the scoring is to be believed. 157 all out from 34.1 overs despite a solid 46-65 runs from Milo. It was not our best effort but at least we won the toss.

Back in the field we could still win it but crucially we didn’t. The opposition knocked it off with 16 overs to spare and 8 wickets in hand. The brief moments of excitement were Milo bowling Milo squared with a ball that went straight on (just like the others) and Dan Seaman taking his first wicket of the season with his first ball of the season thanks to a very good catch again from Milo covering a lot of ground and diving forward. Some catch.

Game lost and handshakes all round with their umpire declaring to Milo that we were a one man team just to round off a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Many questions were raised after the loss including why the skipper let them have a substitute fielder, are we allowed to have drinks shortly after a rain break when no drinks were provided in the rain break, how can a snapped thigh pad result in a smashed picture, how many runs did we actually get and can we win a game if we win the toss? As always in defeat you look for the positives to take, the silver lining, the ray of hope and we need to look no further than the length of this match report. Four Elms at home next. Let’s hope we lose the toss.