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2nd XI Away
3rd June 2000
Against:  Oxshott 100-7 (41.2 overs)

Result: 

 Lost by 3 wickets
Batting Bowling
1  Ryder P Bowled  4  
2  Patel B Caught  27  
3  Thomas R LBW  1  6-0-18-0
4  Easter M Bowled  0 10-3-17-1
5  Kibriya N Bowled  6  
6  Norcross D * LBW  37
7  Walker N Bowled  0 8-3-15-3
8  Dingwall I Bowled  11 12.2-3-38-2
9  Cockett B Bowled  3 5-2-10-1
10  Cunnington Not Out  1
11  Eyles A † LBW  0  
Scorer:  Lynda Total 97
38.4 		All Out
overs
    Following our exertions against Chessington the previous week, Norcross was confronted with a severe shortage of players. Only nine were told and Cannon, Ansbro, Khan, Kane and Marchant were all missing. Branson, who had become available, promptly became unavailable with a back seizure. The seconds were the only team in the OA's with injuries, which hinted at some athletic prowess at least. By Thursday Norcross was frantic, but Faruqui gave him the numbers of the entire school first eleven. When McKee got wind of this he urged Norcross to point out to the poor young lads that although the standard of 2nd XI cricket was garbage they would be welcome in the firsts if they reapplied at a later date in July say. Eleven phone calls and nine rejections for "sorry I've got to revise for my GCSE's/modules/A levels" later, Norcross had his men; Bhavish Patel, the school number one, and Mark Easter who made it in to Wisden last year as a fifth former with the second best batting and bowling average. A Ha, thinks Norcross. By Friday night it was boo-hoo as Mik Patel's uncanny ill fortune resurfaced with a badly bruised hand, trapped in a car door. An eleventh was found in the shape of Dave Cunnington, an English teacher at Oxford University who hadn't played for five years. No matter, with the first team quality of Patel and Easter we were a shoe-in for early vistory.
    Now you may recall that Oxshott Village was the scene of the most remarkable match in Surrey Championship history. Three years ago, the Saturday after Tony's glorious victory in the 1997 election, we were mullered for five and a half hours before Jonathan Wall destroyed a cocky Oxshott attack with 80 in 35 balls to claim a totally undeserved victory. This year we arrived with our tails up. Sadly the tails did not materialise in the toss up so we were put in to bat.
    Bhavish and Phyllis Ryder strode to the crease and after a little early sparring Bhavish destroyed the Oxshott bowlers with five glorious fours in two overs before he lifted a half volley to mid wicket for a regulation sucker dismissal. 34-1 in 8 overs swiftly became 42-6 as the entire OA top order succumbed to the lethal straight ball. Four of them were bowled: the helmeted and extremely powerful looking Easter played no stroke to a non-deviating wicket to wicket medium paced delivery for a duck, Ryder missed a straight one, Thomas padded up to a straighter one, Kibriya allowed the ball to hit his off stump as did Walker. Norcross was joined by Dingwall who's words of encouragement stretched as far as "well skip, we're buggered 'ere." Certainly were after he missed, yes you've guessed it, a straight one and it was left to Norcross with stout assistance from the fast maturing new boy Cockett, to take us past humiliation in to desperately awful. Norcross' 37 was a welcome return to form, though he was dropped twice, both to fiercely hit bullets. Things were looking faintly hopeful at 90-7 before Cockett was bowled through the gate and the young first teamers coming on as umpires wrapped things up with a couple of classic LBW capitulations in the teeth of screaming Surrey merchant bankers. 97 all out was calamitous but with Easter spearheading the attack, and the Oxshott players looking pretty Village as their name suggested, we were not entirely out of it.
    We took to the field and were rewarded early on with an LBW decision for Dingwall. Frankly Vlad the Impaler would have been intimidated into raising his finger, so petrifyingly shrill was Dingers' appeal and accompanying Zebedee style boing-ing on both feet. This brought in their skipper who had scored a ton against us three years ago. He was promptly dropped by the unfortunate Cunnington at mid off. Oxshott were now advancing steadily on the total and reached 48 before any further mishap. At which point things started to get interesting. Norcross rotated his "bowlers" in short bursts, giving Thomas five swift overs, but it was the combination of Cockett and Walker that hauled the OA's back into the game. Cockett was producing weird drifty type things that no-one seemed to know how to deal with, and Walker at last found his length to devastating effect. The skipper was out three times to catches behind and LBW's that weren't given and gradually we reduced them to 72-6. At this point Norcross produced his master stroke. Mindful of McKee's words of wisdom he reintroduced Easter into the attack, and replaced the tiring Walker with the ageless Dingwall. Within six overs it was all over; Oxshott won by three wickets.
    All in all we had performed manfully in the field. All the bowlers kept a good tidy length, and for the most part the ground fielding was excellent with Patel and Easter unsurprisingly leading the way. Walker's three wickets were well deserved and the upside of abject failure is that the new boys may return feeling there is still much to be proved at this lowly level. Sadly our batting had been inept and another 30 runs was all we would have needed to claim at least the winning draw. No miracle then, but the hardest part of the season is now over and the team is beginning to take shape with Khan's return imminent and Ansbro's vacationing coming to an end. Competition for places will be hotting up, but Easter's duck will surely deprive us of his services as he will be promoted to the 1sts at the earliest possible opportunity. And good news from our Kiwi import. Paul Kane phoned to say that he had been doing some swimming, hill walking and caber tossing, and would be starting his 10 mile road running this week, so will be fit for 24th June. Khan has just emerged from the sofa and will be fit this Saturday. Who needs Hardy and Tredge?
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