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At 4.45pm last Sunday I thought I was really handling this captaincy business very well. Having been put into bat, we had amassed 220-7 against 10 men, and looked forward to another home win. At 7.20. pm we lost by 3 wkts, having had them at 47-4. For the second week running we had failed to defend what seemed a good total and all the self doubts about my tactics returned.

We batted well as a team again, although Nick Wright & Mick Reeve both submitted their candidacy for this years Mallard trophy. David Frampton elected to open and scored 25 in his comeback match, and Ash with 29, Edgar with 45, and Jerry Stockbridge with 34, all made notable contributions before a late burst from Robin with 22 n.o. and Matt 13 n.o. boosted our total to 220. After tea we started brightly with Robin taking 3 wkts, one courtesy of a good catch off a skier by Toby at mid off, and Jerry W. smartly ran out the visiting opener with a direct hit at the bowlers end. However the Pirbright run rate was always over 4 an over and a stand of over 100 proved our undoing. Despite a late 3 wkt burst by Jerry W. we lost with 2 overs to spare. Our bowling was tidy but lacked penetration against 4 or 5 good batsman and with a fast outfield, every bowler went for 4+ an over. Bowling figures were: Ashley W. 7-2-32-0, Robin L. 5-0-36-3, Edgar F. 6-1-24-0, Matt H. 4-0-27-0, Jerry W. 9-0-47-3, Toby C. 3-0-13-0, and myself 6-0-32-0.

Once again we must take the view that 441 runs were scored in a match played in a very good spirit so it can't be all bad, but being a bad loser deep down, it reinforces my view that we are better batting second.