If it is sunny at Kingswood then it becomes impossible to see the ball from the south-eastern end of the ground. We have used this to good effect ourselves in the past, but there is no really satisfactory solution if you are batting second. At 6 o'clock there were eleven of us and four of them, so we were batting second. We agreed that during the sunset all the bowling would be from the orient, but after the sunset, at one stride comes the dark.

The Kingswood batsmen played with an aggression bordering on recklessness given that the loss of three wickets would have brought the game to a sudden halt. A pattern was soon established: every bowler was allowed to bowl one quiet over and then hit out of the attack next over. Duncan removed himself after just one over, though, wanting the other end. Kevin collected two wickets by persistence and some low bounce, but by that time more opponents had arrived and after ten overs things looked bad. Kingswood, however, had other ideas. A run-out was what we needed, and Arvind did it in style, whipping off a glove and hitting the stumps at the bowler's end. Quite gratuitous, as both batsman were at the other end, having an almighty barney about how they got there: he could have walked down with the ball. Next ball we got rid of their most threatening batsman, who simply walked off having completed his 50. Apparently this convention had been agreed in advance, although it was news to us. Not only did the batting deteriorate after that, but the bowling improved, Anura being especially good. Our ground fielding, or to be absolutely accurate Gregory's ground fielding, let us down a bit, but we did make some progress. We got seven of them out - five bowled, the run-out and a catch by Rob - for 144.

This was a bit more than we'd have liked but considerably less than we had feared, and when Arvind and James C had twenty on the board at the end of the second over it began to look gettable. But extras had contributed half of those, and as the bowlers found their bearings and the sun sank, we ran into trouble. In theory there was plenty of batting in the side, but only Arvind got going at all and once he was out we were never in the hunt. It was not unlike the Kilmington match at the weekend, even down to James D getting run out again. The main difference was that it was his own fault this time. Exactly as in their innings, there was a run-out, one catch at mid-on, and all the rest were bowled. But their run-out was much sillier than ours.