This match took place on a 21-yard pitch at one side of the square: the long boundary was perhaps five times as long. There were significantly more than eleven players available: so far Adrian, who claims, like Nasser Hussain, to have given up cricket, has not been missed as a mere body. His runs and personality, however, have been, and if he is listening, we should like him back.

Luke and James Dutton opened the batting but Luke's first serious whack resulted in a rather ominous noise from the bat and a catch to cover. But James and Paul Bird made very good progress, even if they hadn't noticed the pitch was short. Had they done so they could surely have run four on more than one occasion, and by running the first three quickly made some of the fours into fives. 61-1 in the ninth over was a fine start, but then Paul, who had cleared the short boundary by some distance the ball before, tried to reach his fifty with another six and was caught at mid-off. The batsmen crossed, so James faced the last ball of the over. Ian, the new batsman, was making his debut for the Venturers. His captain, like Nasser Hussain, ran him out immediately, before he even faced a ball. But Duncan hit another six and a few other good shots, James also progressed, and after John was out quickly, Paul Martin and Mark kept up the momentum almost to the end. Even so, 126-7 was a bit disappointing. It was hard to say how that happened: nobody did the wrong thing, but somehow we didn't make as many as we should have.

Should have, or needed to. Our bowlers found the short pitch hard to adjust to. Duncan bowled well but Gregory gave away seven runs immediately before finding out where the other end was. At the end of the fourth over one opener missed a huge slog and was fortuitously bowled by Gregory, whom James immediately took off on the grounds that even if they get out to it, rubbish is still rubbish. Ian and Rhodri did slightly better, and various chances of catches, stumpings and run-outs, none of them easy, went missing; but no wicket fell. After reaching fifty the other opener got bored and left. He should earlier have been run out by John's excellent throw, but it arrived before Paul was expecting it and he forgot to take the bails off. The run-rate was not enormous but it was more than enough and we were always losing.

It was around this stage that Paul Martin announced that he wished to be called Betty in future. Possibly this is a prelude to keeping wicket in a ballgown, rather than the beige shorts and sunhat tied on with a table napkin that he usually wears, and which make him look vaguely like Peter "Spycatcher" Wright. More likely he had just lost the plot a bit, and didn't say what he meant. In fact, he seemed to be saying that all Pauls playing for the Venturers ought to be known as Betty, and some of the other Pauls may possibly object to this.

In despair James threw the ball to Luke, who had never bowled in a match before. His first ball was delivered with an arm self-consciously straight enough to satisfy even the Australian government, and was rather wide outside the off stump. The opposing captain may or may not have been a spy, but Paul Martin caught him anyway when he aimed a wild swish at the ball and didn't quite miss. Rather a good catch. Luke reeled around in the crease at the bowler's end, looking stunned. The next ball went for five wides, but later on in the over another batsman missed a huge swish altogether; and this time the ball was a straight full toss. Unfortunately, his successor chose to play a cricket shot and immediately collected the two runs needed to win.

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