Flaming June made a welcome reappearance for this match, which saw the OAs eager to return to winning ways. As we arrived to play on the front pitch, we found that our ground had taken on a carnival-like atmosphere, with the sounds of amplified music wafting through the trees from a nearby fair, and the sight of a slow procession of assorted vehicles crawling around the South Circular on this baking hot day.

Zoob won the toss and elected to take the field, only to discover to his disappointment that only eight of his team were present and ready to start. Two substitute fielders were quickly secured from Norwood, and Franklin was pressed into service to open the bowling with Smith. Tight bowling from this pair, and subsequently from Hassan, saw the visitors constrained to a slow start, with the first 20 overs yielding just 37 runs.

Norwood attempted to accelerate in the later overs, but found this difficult against the three-pronged spin attack of Wall, Chapman and Kripps, all of whom bowled with skill and variation to prevent the floodgates from opening. Great credit was due to Eshelby for his tidy and effective wicket-keeping, which resulted in four stumpings and a catch behind.

Norwood eventually crawled to a total of 168 off a mammoth 51 overs, leaving a much smaller ration of time and overs for the OA response after tea.

Our openers went to the crease with instructions to bat positively, and the innings was duly launched near the required rate of 4.8 runs per over despite a clatter of wickets. Some clean hitting from Wall kept us in the hunt, until he was dismissed attempting to bludgeon a good ball from the visitors' premier bowler, at which point a further collapse made victory an unlikely prospect.

As we slipped to nine wickets down, the spectres of our tame defeats earlier in the season returned to haunt us and, with "Ride of the Valkyries" audible in the background, we envisaged the imminent arrival of a troupe of horse-riding females to carry off our slain warriors. But, this time, our bacon was saved by heroics from the entrenched Marmion and the newly-arrived Zoob, who together compiled a spirited, undefeated stand of 18 runs for the last wicket to play out the last 7 overs of the match without further alarms.

Norwood were left to reflect that they might have forced a win if they had cut their innings short a bit sooner and bowled more than 35 overs at us in the remaining time.

Ian Chapman