Paul Wilson and Rhodri strode out to open up, and the first over saw drives for 2 and then 4, and setting a target of a run-a-ball was surely looking about right? But from there on in batting proved tough for all who tried their hand. Singles were scampered, but boundaries dried up fast, and many shots were hit in the air as the ball seemed to swing and generally do some odd stuff for whoever hurdled it down like a pie - it just didn't come on to the bat! Rhodri and Alex fell cheaply and Paul barely made double figures before Kevin and Duncan combined for a mid-innings thrash around for twenty-odd apiece and kept the score up around four an over. Duncan was particularly unlucky to be run out while returning for a second from a throw in from the deep that surely must have taken a ridge to put it back on the line of the stumps. Kevin, Tom and James Dutton all perished in trying to put some umpf back in to our total; something that John Harris actually managed to do with some really good looking shots in the last few overs. VCC closed on 85-8 after 20 - not as many as initially desired, and possibly shy of one more quick single or single converted in to a two per over - but given the difficulty of the batting conditions and especially the ever darkening skies, hell - it might prove to just be enough...

Indeed the last stages of this match were fought out in total darkness, like that Test in Karachi. This was because of our brilliant strategy of having at least two captains, who issued contradictory directives to the fieldsmen which then had to be clarified, and because of the long talks between overs and sometimes between balls that their batsmen, less brilliantly, indulged in.

85 for eight was a passable total, but to defend it we were going to have to bowl and field well. Amazingly, we did: no overthrows, scarcely a misfield, two run-outs. It didn't look good to start with. There were some loose balls and two catches went down (it was becoming hard to see the ball against the trees, in fairness); but just when their openers were looking settled Rob held one back and a catch looped into the air on the offside, just high enough to allow confusion to develop. Rob and Gregory converged on the ball; neither captain spoke. A third captain, Duncan, saw the danger in time and called the catch as Gregory's, and he boringly caught it. Next over, Tom bowled the number 3, and the new batsman pushed his first ball straight to Paul and ran, silently. Paul's return was not perfectly accurate, but it was swift, which was far more important; and Rhodri completed the run-out. Tom in his next over won an LBW decision and hit the stumps with his next ball, and Bradford 39 were threatening to live up to their name. They didn't; but James Dutton and Gregory brought the scoring rate down to almost nothing, and collected three wickets between them, so that with eight down Bradford needed forty from six overs. They had one good batsman left, and he tried to farm the strike. But he could not see the ball any more, or even the bowler from the waist down when James Coughlan, wearing black trousers, was bowling his very slow and very accurate chinamen. John bowled well too, and the fielding was excellent, Alex in the deep being especially good; and in due course there came a run-out, with both batsmen at the same end. The darkness deepened further while the umpires argued about who was out. Bradford somehow came out of it with the good batsman still in, and on strike; but it didn't matter. James Dutton began the last over with 13 needed: the batsman refused a single first ball (surely wrong), and James gave him no further chance to do anything.