It is a long time since we last beat Rode. Some years ago, at Rode, Adrian Wolstenholme destroyed a chair when he got out, but I think we won all the same; but not recently. This time we seemed to have a good chance. Arvind, with Liam in support, put up nearly fifty for the first wicket, rapidly, in spite of good and serious bowling. But when Liam was out it went to pieces, because both Kevin, who just gloved a ball he was trying to leave, and Mike, whose first innings for two years ended with a good short-leg catch, made ducks. Duncan's first ten runs all came from involuntary deflections, and soon after that Arvind was out. But then Duncan got used to the bowling, and he was well supported by Christian and later by Toby. We wanted a few more runs, and had a few overs left when we were bowled out; but 166 was at least defensible.

The trouble was that we didn't quite know how to do it. Kevin removed much of the Rode top order, with some good bowling and some good luck, and we had half of them out for 70. There was one really capable batsman left, who hit it hard. His partner, though, was no rabbit, and we probably did the wrong thing in concentrating our efforts on the number 7. We should have attacked the good batsman, perhaps with slow bowling from one end; but we lost our collective nerve. Duncan consulted widely, so it wasn't just his mistake.

The first critical moment came when Rode were still only four down. The good batsman hit a ball from Gregory back down the ground at head height, hard: the bowler got his left hand to it, but couldn't hold on. He was taken off, and Kevin was brought back. This was not cheaper: there were two huge sixes in the over. But Kevin did also take a wicket. It was the last for a while. We were beginning to drift when the number 7 hit a ball from James in the air down to deep square leg. Kevin waved at it as it passed over him, and found to his surprise that he had caught it: Catch of the Season so far. Now we needed the batsman out, and eventually Arvind, who had been keeping wicket, was persuaded to let Toby have a go with the pads, and bowl. He bowled the batsman, and he bowled the number 9. We had nearly forty runs to play with, and two tail-end wickets to get. Gradually the runs leaked away, as the quicker bowlers (Kevin was out of overs by now, though) made no progress. Finally, when we were down to a dozen runs, Duncan decided to settle the issue one way or the other with a spinner. After prolonged thought he chose Gregory. The second ball of the over was pushed gently, at easy catching height, to short extra cover, who dropped it. Gregory compounded the disaster with a full toss next ball, and in the next over they picked off the remaining runs. It came down to greater experience in the end, perhaps even more than better catching.