By this time it was raining. Kevin could not see through his glasses and the slow bowlers' children had been ushered under cover at the boundary. Gregory's second over was interrupted by a heavy shower. It consisted mainly of full tosses and was correspondingly expensive. James Dutton was hardly any better, and order had to be restored by the medium-pacers: Rob, who bowled very tidily and was unlucky not to get wickets, and Adam, who bowled the only truly aggressive batsman they had. The Man in the Iron Mask - he batted and kept wicket in a helmet, so we never found out what he looked like - occupied one end for the rest of the innings, scoring very slowly, and Adam, Glyn and John worked through the batting at the other. Only two of them offered any threat: a bloke who attempted a few shots with mixed success before scooping a return catch to Glyn, and a woman. She had her own kit, so we suspected at once that she was competent: rumour had it that she plays county cricket. She didn't seem likely to hit the ball far but might have done some damage by careful placement if the Man in the Iron Mask hadn't obligingly run her out. We bowled them out for 148, which was slightly more than we would have liked but seemed within reach.

Mark and James Coughlan opened the batting, with instructions to put 30 on the board in ten overs. They didn't quite do that, but they got close before James got an inside edge onto his stumps. Ian played the first two balls bowled to him by the county lady, both straight and on a good length, back to her. Her style suggested that her next forty-six balls would be exactly like the first two (which would have been very awkward for us), but the third one was shorter and a bit wide. Ian hit it gently to cover, and departed extremely slowly. By now the pitch had dried out and was beginning to turn, and scoring fast was more difficult than ever. Mark and Glyn kept the score moving just fast enough, though, and didn't get out: Mark outscored Glyn, but eventually became frustrated and missed. By that time, we were getting quite close, but starting to run out of overs. Kevin failed, and Duncan's timing had deserted him completely. Glyn was tiring, so it was hard to make ones into twos, which was probably the best way to push the score along. By the time Glyn was caught in the deep we were very much favourites, but there was still some work to be done. James Dutton tried some more aggressive running, but was bowled by a ball that hardly bounced at all.

The required run rate was never high, but it was starting to rise, and we were starting to run out of batting. Their spinners ran out of overs, but two more overs of ladies' county medium pace kept us from doing much. At the other end, though, Rob suddenly showed how it was not to be done, playing a reverse sweep and fortunately missing, and then how it was, sending a perfectly-timed hoick to cow corner. They panicked and tried a different bowler: he was less accurate, and near the end of the over he ran outside the return crease and was duly no-balled. Bill Owen are a team of lawyers: three of them converged on the umpire to explain what the no-ball law was and why that ball had in fact been perfectly legal. Their versions of the law were all different, and all wrong. Three runs followed off the next ball, and Rob and Duncan completed the win shortly afterwards.