A tricky assignment of Saddos' first 40 over home game

The fixtures sec had planned the experiment carefully for the Bank Holiday Sunday of half term giving instructions for the expectation of the "preparation of the proper cricket tea" - madness some said, a challenge said others, well two of us did.

The skipper offered to match manage with the first challenge locating his oppo. Emails are always helpful and with many ccs the fixture was booked. Although the game was only confirmed at 6pm on Saturday with calls to their captain and vice captain, an ominous pre cursor we were playing a well organised team - It turned out they had similar selection problems to ours!

With many regulars away, quite surprising really bearing the timing!, we were scratching around with only seven in the team on Thursday. Jim Franklin offered to play his second game in a row after finishing the Alvin All stars game in style and with Button's rallying email the Scratchers connection came up trumps to get us to the full compliment.

Button carried on trying to conscript others, like an HR consultant on Linked in, unearthing one definite and with others' efforts we had 14 possibles by Friday evening!

With the team in place we moved on to fulfilling the instruction for the "preparation of the proper cricket tea". Ian volunteered to sort and adopted the Nigella way "women should take a pride in their ability to bake cakes" speaking at the Hay Festival. So produced a simple serve yourself buffet carefully procured from Costco, although without the customary tripe and brown sauce sandwiches. When their leg spinner was asked if it was "ok" said "we've had worse elsewhere!"

There were a hoard of retrospective female volunteers "oh if only you'd asked darling I would have done it" -yeah right. No doubt those not present will surpass us next time with proper napkins, tablecloths and their support staff to make and pour tea.

So with cool bags packed Messrs Cook and Holmes discussed tactics on the journey and Ian's suggestion to "let them bat first to make a game of it!" proved a remarkably accurate prediction. On arrival he located the Button contingent who had established that "the Rothamsted lower Pavilion will be open 12 - 8" was not entirely correct. Once the groundsman was located he proceeded to lay out his culinary extravaganza - pre cut rolls, pre sliced cheese and ham, a tub of coleslaw with the healthy olive oil spread and plum tomatoes. The multi pack of biscuits being the 'piece de resistance'.

As the sun came out and with no opposition in sight Nick and Pete thought there would be a benefit in inspecting the wicket. First test was to locate a wicket amongst the sea of green and concluded it must be the only strip with the white marking. This was neatly arranged close to a drain cover and a drop of a foot off the edge of "the square" so Skip thought he'd have to plan for mugs to field there.

It was a relief to see the first opposition group although they asked for the start to be delayed "All our cars are in a group following the skipper. He's just be stopped by the police. It could be for anything". This was closely followed by the Scratchers three strolling down the hill through the dappled sunlight of the oak trees separating the upper and lower pitches.

Once both sides were up to full contingent both sides agreed to follow the Holmes strategy so Saddos took the field. Boxmoor's opening pair combined an early Jackson 5 70s hairstyle at one end and a close to military one at the other.

Button opened with a tail wind from the upper end looking to alter the hair styles while Noden bowled up wind. Both made the Boxmoor openers play and miss regularly, unfortunately without success. Winfield and Holmes continued in similar vein with Saddos being given a lesson in only hitting the bad balls and then preferably for four. This combined with excellent taking of singles kept their score ticking over.

Randall continued until a sharp stumping by new keeper Franklin broke the stand. The bowling being rotated between Tennant and Homeyard alternating their overs to see if they could confuse the batsmen, Chaplin, and Barton's variety all producing difficult chances which were not taken. Barton forcefully demanded an extra over and induced a skier which Winfield pouched leading to interesting banter with the young umpire.

The new batsmen was a young colt so Cook thought he'd choose his moment to turn his arm. The opener had just reached his century and his eyes lit up at the buffet bowling on offer but only managed to flat bat a return dolly catch. Franklin bowled his four overs tidily after swapping the keeper's pads with Randall, meaning there are now five keepers in our enlarged squad. Rotating the bowlers and by keeping the youngster in we were still left with a target of just over five an over.

Skipper Cook showed that we're not a back of a fag packet side by setting the batting line up on a paper plate while the teas were eaten.

Opening with Randall and Cook scoring was steady as the Boxmoor opening bowlers used the wicket well until the first change induced Cook to offer a low left handed catch of their spinner to mid wicket which was extremely well taken by the centurion. Boxmoor rotated their bowlers frequently. Wickets tumbled regularly with the batsmen not coming to terms with the variable bounce and spin, only Winfield reached double figures.

Thanks go to our junior umpires who were given a chance to bat once the game was over and to the opposition who created a good atmosphere and played fairly when they could have easily ground us down when our innings was going downhill. The salutary lesson being the pitches quality meaning we have to be more selective when to hit out, oh and 40 overs is a long game for us to concentrate fully.