The innings against Ajax started like many others. Bob and Bert strolled to the middle, and even before the first ball was bowled, Bob was mentally assessing the fielders. There’s only one stat in his mind: surviving the most dropped catches in the season. Which one would he bamboozle with a catch so easy, so early on, that they couldn’t possibly be ready for it? As it turns out, his talent spotting is second to none in that department, and he duly notched up two such survivals in the first five overs.

At the other end, Bert rather liked the look of the bowler. She is 19, after all. Having been forced to take a run by Bob, he then decided he didn’t like the look of the faster, older Liverpudlian feller at the other end and wanted to sit on the boundary admiring the opponents’ talent instead. So he did.

Astonishingly, this didn’t result in a collection of single digit partnerships. Paul gallantly hung around, until he had a “Yes! No! Oh, I don’t know! Lib Dem!” moment, signaling the start of Paddy’s innings. He battled and toiled, and saw Bob crawling towards a half century in dropped catches. And runs. Bob must have thought we were clapping his 50, when it was the partnership that had got there first, so he gave up, gave a sharp chance, knowing those were the only catches he could get out to.

Having lost 3 wickets for 118, you’d be right to assume a total of around 150. But the next wicket didn’t fall until the total showed 206 runs, when Paddy fell for 76 to a superb catch at long on. We all clapped and howled and shouted “well done!” It really was a great catch. Paddy’s innings was ok too, with his best shot a crashing six, right into the chair vacated by Neal Wall not 2 seconds earlier.

With a fair licence to “go for it” in the last 8 overs, the batsman duly responded with around 10 runs in 18 balls. Nagesh and Richard fell in quick succession, leaving Tim to see out the overs. He managed 4 balls. Mind you, he got 9 runs off them. Dick was reading the ball like the back cover of one of his political science books and Matchett decided he didn’t want to let Frankie or Skip bat. 248/7

The second innings seemed destined to last no longer than the average half pint after a long toil in the sun. Not that you’d find many half pint drinkers in this team, one would imagine.

From 4/1 to 22/5 lasted all of 11 overs. But that’s not the whole story. How often do you see a “leg cutter” bowled by the opening bowler pitch half a yard outside leg stump, only to come back and hit middle and leg? (first wicket).

How often do you see Rob Wolfe take a cat-lie reflex catch at gully? Twice? (second and fourth wickets, and: not often, considering the three he dropped throughout the innings)

How often do you see Matchett return 8-1-13-5? (I’d guess not often, and it included a hat-trick ball).

And how often do you see Frankie take not only his first, but also his second wicket ever? Well, once, to be precise.

Come to think of it, how often do you see Skipper Walsh bowl?

But the highlight has to be the flying tackles at mid off, when both Dick and Paul wanted to field the ball.

At 98 runs, the resistance was broken.

Then there’s a an  honourable mention for Ajax batsman Rob Burley (14 yo lad), who walked on a caught behind off his first ball, even before the umpire twitched a muscle. It’s fantastic to see sporting behaviour is not dead and has a future, and he was unlucky to have a great ball first up. Considering he’d faced the worst of Paddy’s batting as well, it shows great character.

And finally, while Tim was adamant that “she looks shorter at that end”, the 19 year old girl (Christine Erkelens) surely must be the man of the match, just for putting up with the lot of us for a whole day, as well as for her 12 no, getting Bob out and catching Paddy out. And yet, all Paddy could worry about was how to stay on her Christmas card list.