Under grey skies, which make it remarkably difficult to see the ball, we turned up in ones and twos at Victory Field in Bradford. So did the opposition, most of whom were in the pub already. We had only ten, but they had twelve, so things balanced out.

Andy V started off brightly, hitting two fours in the first over. James D, too, showed some aggression, and the score was already 20 when the sixteenth ball of the match took James's off stump with it. Two overs later, Andy miscued to square leg, and a slow collapse started. It was accelerated slightly by a preposterous run-out, of which Dino was the innocent victim, and attenuated by some firm clouting by Mark and Rob T; but when they both went at the same score, we were in considerable trouble. We never quite got out of it. Kevin's ability to send the ball down to third man was not quite as fortuitous as the opposition supposed, and he and Chintan managed something of a recovery, but rather too slowly. Once Chintan had gone, Duncan produced one of his less distinguished innings and only an uncharacteristic cover drive by Gregory got us into three figures. Kevin, top scorer with 23, was leg before again, and we thought that the innings had ended there. But at this point their twelfth player decided to play for us, and blocked out the rest of the nineteenth over, leaving Gregory to get bowled having a swish at the first ball of the twentieth.

Duncan and Kevin made 103 look like plenty, Duncan in particular being impossible to get away. Kevin's final over was not as good, but if we could have kept things tight we might have got away with it. Instead, Andy, Rob T and Gregory each produced one over of indescribable rubbish, and although Chintan picked up two wickets and we didn't field badly considering that we couldn't see the ball, we lost calmly with nearly three overs to spare. The pitch offered some help to bowlers, but no attempt was made by either side to find out whether it turned. Gregory's over, which in any case was the fourteenth of the innings, did not include such an attempt, and James did not bowl at all. The match didn't really include such subtleties. Duncan bowled well, Kevin and Chintan satisfactorily, and Dino kept wicket without looking as if he'd never done it before, though in fact he hadn't.