South Wraxall has the ideal country cricket ground. Swallows swoop over a field mowed out of the long grass; an ancient manor house watches from across an unused lane. A large tree stands within the boundary. It is very easy to imagine how it must have looked when the last matches were played in 1914 and 1939.

Dino scooped the second ball of the match to square leg, who dropped it confidently. Thus encouraged, he and Owain made a good start, although Owain would have been given out LBW to a full toss if only somebody had appealed. Several more catches went down. Paul was given out LBW, perhaps not Gregory's best decision of the season. Duncan Lee found the ball impossible to time, and gradually they chipped away at us. Almost everybody got a start, but only Luke, who ran out of partners, showed much application. Luke's nationality is still apparent at the crease, but he is starting to look like a cricketer rather than a baseball player. This time he took singles deliberately several times and once rolled his wrists to keep the ball on the ground. If this goes on much longer he will be a technically correct stodger in five years' time. But the left-armer who had opened the bowling reappeared with the new idea of bowling at the stumps, and removed the tail rather quickly. Even so, 168 all out looked like a good score on a pitch of unpredictable bounce.

South Wraxall have a very competent left-handed opening batsman who coaches all his partners. Kevin caused even him trouble, but Duncan Rance was less reliable than usual, mixing good balls with wild ones. Kevin bowled the other opener, but the ball was showing a distressing tendency to follow Rob in the field, not closely enough for him to stop it. James suffered from this, but was also not as accurate as usual. It was Gregory who finally made some progress, bowling the left-hander with an arm ball and having his partner well caught by Luke in the deep. As South Wraxall had only two more competent batsmen we were well in control, even though events on the boundary were giving away a lot of runs. Both Rob, who was lying down, and Owain, who was standing up, had balls bounce right over them and go for four. Duncan L decided to have a bowl himself, removing a reluctant Gregory to make this possible. He was not successful; and neither was Rob, nor any of the other faster bowlers; but no return was made to spin, Gregory and James being parked in the long grass, and we lost calmly by seven wickets. The pub at South Wraxall, however, is as picturesque as the ground.