A cracking start to cricket week with some exciting cricket and (almost) dry conditions, with better weather forecast for the rest of the week.

Fosters captain Duncan Elder won the toss and as a true opening batsman decided to bat first. Unexpectedly Neil Hale was given the opportunity to open the innings with Flat Track and it was a chance he grabbed with both hands. Whilst Neil battled to see off the opening bowlers (including Fosters own Nathan Miller) the rest of the batsmen decided to play in boundaries but without avoiding losing their wickets. Flat Track fell for 25, Fish for 12 and Doris for 22 as the score reached 104 for 3 after 23 overs.

The skipper came in to join Neil and aided by some friendly pre lunch bowling the score rattled on with 67 runs added in the 12 overs up to lunch. Neil brought up a well deserved 50 with a drive down the ground as he found himself having to eat a scaled down lunch to ensure he was still able to bat on afterwards. Lunch came along with Fosters on 171 for 3 from just 35 overs.

Clearly Steady must have put something into the Fosters lunch (or was it the jokes from the President?) as the innings somewhat folded on the resumption - Duncan falling to the second ball for 31 - with Steady himself, guesting for the President's XI, doing most of the damage with figures of 5 for 31 from 8.2 overs having not previously set foot on the field. His wickets included brothers Matt and James as well as some excellent field setting to have Ian Cooper in exactly the right place to see the end of Neil's splendid innings for 67.

Pumpkin, battling against the insect bite attacking his left hand, made an unsteady 10, Wellsy a quick fire 16, including the biggest 6 of the day, and Sam Barker a battling 9 to give some brief resistance before the innings ended in the 53rd over on a somewhat disappointing 229.

In reply the opening 2 overs were identical in that the 4th balls of each over were spanked through the covers to the boundary by Messrs Cooper and Fahey off the bowling of Matt Stead and Pumpkin respectively. Both openers were tidy however and even aided by a few byes conceded by Doris the score was only 49 for 0 after 13 overs when the spinners came on. With the ball before tea James Stead made the breakthrough having Ian Cooper stumped by Doris for 25 with the score 62 for 1.

After tea Sam and James rattled through their overs and brought a constant supply of wickets. With 15 overs left the President's XI had subsided to 138 for 6 with Sam and James picking up 3 wickets apiece with the opener Fahey now gone for 54.

Nathan tried hitting the big shots but just scored in singles (finally out for 9) whilst President's XI keeper Rock gradually came to terms with the spinners. On 173 he was joined by Steady and despite only having 7 overs to add the final 57 runs the pair batted with confidence to look clear favourites for victory.

Rock began to take a lot of runs from Sam Barker, whose bowling figures were revealed by the scorers, so that he got a round of applause when a 6 over the pavilion brought up his '100'. Sam was however a bit unlucky in having a boundary hit off the 7th ball of one over and a 6 being awarded to a shot that hit the boundary fence in front of the pavilion, which based on local rules should really have been only a 4.

It was clear however that Steady was determined to take this to the wire. Leaving one run to win from the final ball to be faced by Rock (who finished 55 not out), a poor connection was made and Steady was run out by some distance to leave the scores level.

The day was finished by a golf chipping competition and Ruby's jacket potatoes. A great start to the week - let's see if we can keep this up.
 

In the words of our sage Pumpkin 'The bar is open, the sun is shining and cricket is being played!'. Although was there really an excuse for Shag to wear that waistcoat?

As has become traditional Malcontents batted first without any requirement for the captains to make any movement to the middle of the square. It was pretty obvious from the array of batsmen sitting without any pads on that this was clearly a strong batting line up that Malcontents had brought along. It therefore would have been helpful if the Cockfosters bowling attack had managed to maintain a good line and length on a batsman friendly track. Every short or stray delivery was punished as the opening batsmen Clements and Shah rattled up 150 for the opening wicket before Clements surprisingly departed for 66, well caught by Nathan off of Matt's bowling. When lunch came only 29 overs had been bowled but the score was already over 180 for 1, with Harry being the most economical bowler in giving up just 5 an over in his spell.

Soon after lunch a double act from the scorers ensured that the other opener Shah failed to reach his century. Having reached 93 Jessica called for help in adding the '1' on to the score board - as soon as her father reached the scorebox he was out caught behind off Nathan for 95. Abbots Langley's Aussie was by now scoring freely and he also made a half century finally out for 74. The most successful pace bowling came via the introduction of Craig Hutchins who took 3 for 40 including a smart caught and bowled.

Joe Clune's off spin also kept Malcos in check and he too was to take 2 wickets late on thanks to contrasting catches from Stokesy. Whilst the second was fairly straight forward, the first one involved an acrobatic dive in front of the pavilion worthy of seasonal catching awards discussions, as he chased down a skier towards wide long on. Kyle secured an unlikely run out via his left boot and Malcos declared on 306 for 8 therefore avoiding the need for their skipper to put his pads on.

Most of the Cockfosters reply came under cloudless skies but with the need to score runs quickly. Stokes and Teflon Jr fell cheaply before Kyle joined Flat Track to engender some urgency into the reply. Unfortunately with the score on 72 Kyle decided he wanted to hit the Jet sign - whilst the ball went very high it was the keeper who had plenty of time to take the catch.

Tea was reached on 93 for 3 after a couple of early blows from Tony and it was vital that the post tea session continued in the same vein, and for a while this happened. Tony and Flat Track added 118 for the 4th wicket as the required rate suddenly came down to below 7 an over as boundaries came quickly including a number of big 6s. After a number of great strokes however Tony got a leading edge and was caught for 67 (from just 40 balls) with the score on 190 for 4.

This wicket seemed to put Flat Track back into his shell (his 50 had come up off a surprisingly long 90 balls), no longer looking as confident as he had during the previous partnership. Wickets also started to fall with abandon as Matt, Harry and Nathan fell cheaply. With 10 overs left 80 runs were needed but Joe Clune appeared to put things back in Fosters favour as 14 came from the next over.

Two overs later however came the crucial blow as Flat Track's long innings came to an end as he was bowled for 89. Sadly neither Craig nor the Cue Ball were unable to trouble the scorers thus enabling Malcos to win by 53 runs with 6 overs remaining, leaving Joe unbeaten on 19.
 

The umpires took to the field for the third game of the week and it was Fosters who had first use of the new track. Matt Stead and Teflon Jr made a slow start before Michael fell in the 9th over. Neil, disconcerted by his drop down the order following Monday's heroics also fell cheaply as he nicked the swinging ball.

Then came the key partnership of the innings as Duncan joined Matt in a partnership of 119 for the 3rd wicket as runs began to flow. The partnership was interrupted by a combination of a brief spell of rain and lunch. The covers did the trick though to ensure a quick resumption.

Duncan fell soon after lunch for a well made 57 which enabled Fosters to unleash Tony Sayers for a typically swashbuckling 27 in which he almost decapitated Matt before being caught by one that fielder initially failed to get any hands on! Matt meanwhile was moving along comfortably into the 80s, although now slowing down a bit to ensure that he had a chance of making his maiden ton. With everyone staying firmly in their seats to avoid jinxing him, Matt reached 99 before disaster struck.......

It was left to the Cue Ball to whack a quick 16 to bring up the declaration at 242 for 7.

In reply Buntingford made steady progress although both openers were to succumb to catches by Neil. Pumpkin bowled a tidy spell but was struggling with his run up whilst most of the other bowlers were struggling with their run ups. Bradley returned later on to bowl some spin and almost had 2 wickets in 2 balls with the score on 158 as first Teflon Jr stumped the number 5 batsman and then there was confident appeal for caught behind.

Butingford's number 3, Chambers, was playing beautifully and from a potentially tricky position in needing around 6 an over for victory, he and number 6, Robertson, found their range to rattle off most of the runs with 5 overs remaining. There then came a brief moment of nerves as Chambers struggled to make it to his century, but eventually he found the gap to finish 100 not out. Next ball the winning runs were hit to secure a 6 wicket victory.

Towards the end of the innings Stokesy came on to deputise for the evening's cook Pumpkin, who spent plenty of time putting together some delicious lamb shanks which really should have been sold out
 

As tradition dictated the captains sort of tossed up and decided that the visitors would bat first on what looked likely to be a spicy wicket following a fair amount of overnight rain. Early on though it looked like we would be heading for another sizeable first innings score when they reached 67 for 1 after 14 overs. However there then followed a collapse worthy of an England batting XI as 5 wickets fell for 9 runs.

Matt Stead finished his spell by picking up 3 quick wickets to finish with 3 for 32 from 9 overs and he was supported by Harry, who again made good use of the pitch in taking 2 for 13 from a 4 over spell (finishing with 3 for 18 overall).

Bob Cole's XI had to knuckle down and found in their number 5 batsman Hurrell a man willing to fight to avoid giving away his wicket as he batted for over 2 and a half hours either side of lunch to score 45 and help put on 42 for the 7th wicket and 28 for the 8th wicket. However with his dismissal to the bowling of Craig Hutchins the rest of the innings quickly came as James Stead picked up 2 cheap wickets to see the innings close on 147 all out.

With a seemingly easy task in making it the first win of the week, Fosters made the worst possible start in losing Ian Cooper and Doris (bat not grounded?) with the score on 11. Declan (28) and Matt Stead (19) put on 42 for the 3rd wicket but then a further 3 quick wickets fell to see the side slump to 67 for 5 when tea was taken.

Tony Sayers was now once again in the runs as he and Craig put on 50 for the 6th wicket with Tony scoring the majority of the runs. At 114 for 5 that win looked inevitable but then the final 5 wickets fell in 6 overs and just 13 runs. Tony was the first to go for 45 and then it seemed that each of the ensuing batsmen were determined to knock off the runs quickly when there was lots of time left in the game. The game ended just after 6pm with a 20 run win for the visitors.

Another splendid day in the sun and at the bar, finished off with some tasty macaroni cheese provided by Tracy.
 

Aug 14 - Cockfosters 243 all out lost to Roving Reporters 244 for 7 by 3 wickets

The final day of cricket week and once again the weather was in our favour with another warm and generally sunny day. John Worley won the toss and in the usual tradition of this fixture it was Cockfosters who batted first. The pre planned opening Antipodean partnership of Geoff and Pumpkin got the innings off to a good start. Pumpkin, looking remarkably sprightly despite the amount of beer drunk the previous day raced along to 69, his innings coming off just 59 balls, including 8 4s and 4 6s, before he became the first to be dismissed with the score on 112.

This was also the first dismissal Weist who was to end up with the remarkable figures of 6 for 15 from 9.3 overs. His first batch of wickets led to the opening being somewhat wasted as the score slipped to 128 for 4. Through the carnage Geoff was his usual steady self and with Dan Rollo batting well at the other end they took the score to 149 for 4 at lunch.

Dan fell for 17 soon after the resumption but then Geoff and Steady added 55 for the 6th wicket to take the score along to........

However the innings then fell away as Geoff finally fell for 79 and Steady (33 not out) ran out of partners with only Wellsy with 11 reaching double figures. All out for 243 did however look like a pretty competitive score.

The early reply however suggested that 300 might have needed as 111 was rattled up for 0 wicket off of just 20 overs, with the bowling and fielding somewhat ragged. The skipper told the team what he thought about the display at tea and the team came out to give a much better effort after that.

Pumpkin was brought on to get a wicket and he duly obliged thanks to a leg stump yorker. Steady was then back in the action taking a catch next to the car park off of Xav. Despite these successes the score had reached 176 for 2 with 16 overs remaining.

The pressure came on though thanks to a fine return spell from Wellsy who bowled 8 overs taking 3 for 20. When George Eldred bowled the Roving Reporters No.4 the ball after he had reached his 50, the score had subsided to 222 for 6 with only 4 overs left. Some key hits over the next couple of overs did the trick however and our opponents got home by 3 wickets with 6 balls remaining.

By now a large crowd of home and away supporters were assembled and the BBQ (once it got going) was fully sold out despite extra rations having been acquired just before the cooking started. Thanks to the entire Fisher family for their efforts in the kitchen and over the BBQ (plus thanks to the many others that helped!). I suspect the general festivities went on long into the night, although hopefully everyone will be ready for the Saturday league games.