We turned up at Kilmington with only VIII, and the promised loan of a IXth (Derren French) from the opposition after 3:15. He is a bowler and we were batting, so it could have been worse: however, we had managed to produce XIs up until this. We might have had X, at least, if Adam had had a clearer idea of the distinction between Saturday and Sunday. In Israel, and in certain parts of Scotland and the USA, they attach great importance to the difference.

It was a bit like falling off a horse. There we were, and then suddenly there many of us weren't any more. England were 2 for 4 not so long ago (at Johannesburg in November 1999), but they were not 6 for 5. Paul Martin, Mark, Alex and Kevin all made rapid ducks (there were two wides) and Neil did only a little better. After that Kilmington tried not to go for the kill. This is hard to do and harder still to do tactfully. The way not to do it is to hand the ball to your two slow bowlers at 40-5 with the encouraging words "Got to put the spinners on or they won't make fifty". They, on the occasion when I heard that done, made 47. We, on this occasion, did rather better. Tom and James Coughlan were solely responsible for the 86 we did make. There were a few extras and Derren made 3, but the only competent batting came from those two. In fact they were so competent that we even began to imagine we might make a reasonable score, but eventually James holed out at cover (we were beginning to run out of overs). Derren made his 3 and Gregory contributed a fifth duck. The innings might have ended there, but Kilmington decided to allow Paul and Mark another go. But Tom got out immediately and Paul made a strong bid for the Duck of the Year award, out first ball and thus achieving a pair in a single innings.

Kevin and Gregory made quite a good start. The bounce was very low and the pitch very slow: however, there was some movement for Kevin and lots of turn for Gregory. Anything at all short, however, was a gift, and Gregory in particular sometimes allowed that. One of the openers hit a straightforward catch off Gregory to square leg, who dropped it: as he was on loan from Kilmington and aged about fourteen he had to be forgiven. The other opener looked as if he wanted to hit Gregory into the next county, but couldn't decide between Somerset and Dorset; but he actually batted with restraint. After a while Kevin cleaned him up with a leg-stump yorker, such as Steve Harmison might bowl on a particularly viscous day. But that was all we got until Derren bowled the other opener off his pads, and by that time they needed less than 20. Tom chose not to have a farewell bowl himself, but he could hardly have done much anyway. We simply had far too few runs.

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