Kilmington, where we played at the weekend, is a beautiful ground: Monkton Combe, if anything, even more. At the bottom of a steep-sided valley is a thatched pavilion, with great trees, sheep on the hillside, a railway line in the distance. There is some traffic noise and a faint smell of wild garlic, but you can't have everything. We had a capable-looking side, especially the batting.

It still gets dark early, and the sun sets behind the valley head, so we agreed on 16 overs, with three overs per bowler maximum so six bowlers were needed. Duncan and Gregory were the first two. They gave the batsmen some occasional width: this led to two catches, one of which we caught, but was expensive. James Dutton replaced Duncan but damaged his finger trying to catch the fourth ball he bowled as it shot back past him to the boundary. This showed commendable enthusiasm or irresponsible rashness, depending how you look at it, but now we needed a seventh bowler: worse, the injury will take some weeks to heal, and Kevin and Will are also injured. Ian completed the over, but his next over was also expensive and things were rapidly getting out of hand, at 76 for 1 after only nine overs.

Rob and Anura changed the game completely. They may have benefited from the low sun behind Rob's bowling arm, or from confusion caused by Rob's being twice as tall as Anura; but the main thing they did was bowl straight. Very straight. When Rob did put one outside off the batsman skied it to mid-off, where Ian took a good catch: Will had done the same for Duncan earlier, and would do so again for Anura later. Rob also picked up two more wickets and ended with figures of 3-0-4-3. Anura's figures were less remarkable but also excellent, and Will, too, kept things tight. In the end Monkton Combe just squeezed past 100. This was about 30 runs less than we had expected and at least 15 short of what they seemed likely to need.

Last year Luke ran amok against Monkton Combe, and last week Andy ran amok against Bradford Schoolmasters. If either of these things happened now we would win. But Luke chopped the last ball of the first over onto his stumps and Andy found it hard to time the ball. Ian, also well capable of winning the match, played round his front pad. Gregory has now given three batsmen out LBW by the first week of May: last year he gave only three all season. Ian would later have given Gregory out in retaliation had he not mistakenly thought Gregory had hit it (as if he would!). Jitan improvised a bit, with some success, but the opening bowlers were very accurate. When they ran out of overs, Andy opened up with two fours through mid-on; but then he tried to play two different shots to one ball and missed both of them.

Suddenly we were losing; and then, almost as suddenly, we had lost. Jitan scooped a catch; Betty, still in whites and walking boots, missed; in between, Will provided the absurd run-out that every real collapse should have; Rob missed also. Anura, who seemed the only player on either side able to time the ball, restored a little respectability, enough to see off any records, accompanied by Duncan. Gregory and James Coughlan, who had come along as scorer and deputised for the stricken James Dutton, wasted some valuable drinking time by occupying the crease for a bit without actually making many runs. But the pub at Monkton Combe, reached by driving across the headmaster's lawn and down the cellar stairs, is very pleasant.