The other day South Africa removed a West Indian opener first ball and ended up conceding rather a lot - 747 in their case. Similarly, Paul Snow's fourth ball removed a St Stephens opening bat first ball, smartly caught in the gully by Rob. Even before then an uppish prod had gone wide of the bowler, and Ian had launched himself spectacularly but not quite successfully at an airborne square cut. Duncan Rance, up the hill, was mostly unplayable, at least by the batsmen who had to try to play him. We weren't very worried when Paul Martin dropped a routine edge from the left-hander who had come in when the wicket fell: it didn't seem likely he'd be with us long. Step by step we threw it away. We dropped more catches and missed more stumpings. Duncan Lee was not as precise as Paul had been. Duncan Rance was replaced by Gregory, who bowled two overs of assorted rubbish and was hastily replaced himself. Rob restored order from that end, whereupon runs started to leak from the other end. Ian restored order from there, and Rob finally removed the other opener; but by that time the score was past 100 and it was too late. The left-hander thrashed on, being dropped every twenty runs or so. Luke, normally reliable in the field, sent a powerful return from square cover to deep fine leg. Rob Burvill's small son appeared and disappeared, caught by Duncan Lee off Ian, who was bowling well by now. At this point Rob Branston lost his length, and Steve was given no chance to find his: the left hander reached a hundred, and it was only when John Harris was given the ball that we again controlled things at both ends. He removed the centurion, caught by Ian at the second attempt, and thereafter wickets fell regularly. Duncan Lee, returning when Ian ran out of overs, bowled better than before and claimed one with a straight yorker. Gregory wasn't going to be trusted to bowl again and had also dropped one of the catches, but suddenly woke up and effected a calm run-out. Rob Burvill slogged across the last ball of the innings to give John Harris a well-deserved second wicket. 232, though, was more than enough, especially as Duncan Lee, Ian and Luke were our only really likely batsmen.

With this in mind, Steve was asked to open, to keep the opening bowlers from running through the batting before we started. He managed that, blocking diligently for a while, and Ian was given a flying start when Rob Burvill, of all people, did what Luke had done, hurling the ball extravagantly to the far boundary. James batted well for a bit, Paul also stayed around, and although we were not threatening to get the runs, we were at least avoiding complete disaster. Luke was at first given out caught at the wicket first ball, but was rescued by the opinion of the square-leg umpire (Gregory, by this time) that the ball had bounced first. This was a minority view, but it later turned out that his opinion was shared by the non-striker and the fieldsman at cover, so perhaps he was right: certainly there was enough doubt to justify the reprieve. But Luke was bowled soon afterwards, John Harris fell leg-before and Ian, disastrously, chased a wide one.

With Ian's dismissal all doubt about the actual result ended. Rob did not last long, neither did Paul. Duncan Rance is considered, on little evidence, to be a slightly worse batsman even than Gregory, so it was Gregory who went out to join Duncan Lee at 97-8, feeling that if we got to a hundred it wouldn't be too bad. James had instructed Gregory to get a quick fifty, and been told that his highest score ever was 31 and his highest in a match in which all participants had played before and were sober was 16 (for the Venturers, in nine years, 8). A better policy, obviously, was to block or leave and let Duncan get the quick fifty. Exactly what made him later abandon this policy is unclear, even to him. It began predictably enough: Gregory blocked a few, half-left, half-missed some others, and didn't (less predictably) get out at once: Duncan stroked a couple of boundaries and tried to keep the strike but, with the other Duncan still to come, didn't refuse singles. St Stephens crowded Gregory and set normal fields to Duncan; and after a while they gave Gregory a couple of overthrows. Encouraged by this, he cut a four: there was, of course, no third man. He tried to do it again, was dropped (it would have been a very good catch) and then hit five more fours in rapid succession and ran himself out. Over the valley a pig wheeled on the thermals, turning back into a hawk while Duncan was on strike and also scoring quickly. Rob Burvill was sufficiently alarmed by the outbreak to ask for the score, but what he heard must have reassured him, for he kept the field in. In due time the run-out occurred (many thought the decision a wrong one, though the batsman himself had no idea), Duncan Lee missed a drive before Duncan Rance had faced a ball, and the extinct ivory-billed hawk-pig vanished from the Somerset skies.