Hinton Charterhouse has the sort of ground that would appeal to a film director who has a romantic idea of England but has never actually been here. Indeed a notice in the pavilion tells us that it has been used for filming, but only an episode of Casualty (a great standby for unemployable cricketing actors, by the way). We were there to play the passive but essential role of the victims. Two of the victims, Gregory and Luke, got stuck in the Bath traffic, and arrived during the second over of the match: by the time they got on the field, Hinton Charterhouse were well under way. Not that Steve and Rob bowled badly, but small mistakes got punished. Kevin steadied things and bit and should have had a wicket, but our catching was still in the same state as last week. The score was close to 50 when Duncan turned to the slower bowlers.

Gregory's second ball was a gentle full toss, as indeed his first had been. The batsman lifted his eyes unto the hills, as suggested by the Psalmist, and heaved. His leg bail fell off. We had been due a bit of luck; and in Gregory's next over he hit the stumps again, this time with a good one, and induced a slog to long-on, which Luke caught adroitly. We weren't on top exactly, but things were getting better.

One of the new batsmen was unable or unwilling to run. Instead he simply stood and slogged. He started on Kevin, and then turned his attention to Gregory, hitting a very big six over cow corner off a perfectly good ball and a rather smaller one, which Andy almost got a hand to, off a perfectly bad one. Gregory was hastily removed. John Harris, who bowled very well, and Duncan, restored calm, and Duncan bowled the slogger; but even so the score was past 120 at the start of the nineteenth over. At this point John lost his length, and by the end of the over the score was close to 150; but three wickets fell in Duncan's last over, two bowled and one run out, and we kept them just under 150.

That is quite a lot of runs to get in a 20-over match, but not impossible. Assuming Andy contributed his usual score, we had enough other batting to get there. It was, therefore, deflating when a septuagenarian slow left-armer opened the bowling and Andy flapped his first ball weakly to wide mid-on. Duncan soon skied the same bowler to mid-off, but Simon and Luke got things moving again, slowly at first, then fast enough for the target to come into distant view. It was necessary for Hinton Charterhouse to take serious measures. They did it by bringing on their Sri Lankan, who had run himself out ridiculously and now started with an extremely wide wide. This was misleading: the rest of the over was very straight and of full length. Two of the balls moved back in sharply as well: one bowled Simon, and the other bowled Luke. Mission accomplished, he retired to the deep field and played no further part in the match. Next over, Kevin got stumped.

It is possibly true that they didn't try very hard after that. But they didn't, with one exception, bowl rubbish either. We were in danger of losing by a big margin, but John and Betty had other ideas. John played sensibly and hit the bad balls hard. Paul barely attempted his celebrated but ineffective late cut: instead he used the face of the bat, and hit several powerful shots down the ground on his way to 26. He could have had more if he had been willing to run them, though his supposedly annual fifty was a way off. On this showing, though, it wasn't hard to imagine him getting one. Adam also made a score that would have been useful if we hadn't been losing so hopelessly. The margin of 20 runs in the end was flattering to us: an over full of wides helped. But some of us had got some wickets and some had got some runs, and it was probably good for confidence. Only Luke fielded well, though.