For the Saddos captain there was no easy option: win, and be ridiculed for bullying children and have three of the opposition refuse to talk to him; or lose, and never hear the end of it from the said three children. The decision, dear reader was obvious.

Cricket is full of little traditions. The ritual of the toss, the selection of the batting order and Saddos not having 11 there at the start so being put into bat by default. The missing man, you guessed it, Peter "the Sherpa" Church.

This was a game of firsts: Scott "the major", (he was one, look it up) making his team debut, and sergeant Wilson, right Hook, Glenooooo and multi-a crean Chennells making season debuts.

The corporal supplies a team talk that consists of: lets take this seriously, I want no-one to throw their wicket away and I want 150.

Our very own Hayden and Langer were selected to open. So named not because of any similarity to the Aussie greats, simply because they are past their best and one now coaches while the other talks a good game.

The major gets going early and looked class against 13 year olds, lifting 2 mighty 6s before retiring to a deserved round of applause. His partner looks less assured and is lucky to survive two tricky overs bowled by his more talented daughter Grace. However he has both Grace and luck and also retires (this time to sarky comments rather than applause).

New men are the sergeant and Winfield the scratchy. After a a few missed shoots and what looks from the sidelines like a severe talking to himself Wilson finally connects and hits some nice boundaries before he also retires. As he strides past the press box he is heard to exclaim "thank god I survived that". One shot Church into the action. As Jones daughter No. 3 looks set to bowl Winfield has a crisis of confidence and immediately retires allowing Jones senior the opportunity to be bowled by a 12 year old. Jones survives Church retires and with Hagrid Roberts seeing of the final ball the Saddos inning ends .

A quick review of the captain's to do list reveals:

1. Get 150 - check
2. Lose no wickets - check
3. Treat the opposition bowling with respect-check.

To be fair, the opposition bowled really well and if they had held any of the 5 high but straightforward catches, the to do list would have looked very different.

All that can be said about the bowling is that it happened. They batted well, smacked all three spinners around (including WG - but his memory is not what it was, and his fielding is best left unmentioned).

Jonno bowled Jones daughter No.1 and Glenn caught Jones daughter No.2 so their names are mud in my house. However, as the girls are not talking to this reporter I only hear these things from a distance, which is a result in itself.

It appears to be a new tradition that we end with a lessons learned section. So here goes:

1. These kids are good and we should play them again next year.
2. It is possible to move in the field and stop runs, we saw the kids doing it WG!
3. While watching juniors Williams, Evershed, O'Grady and various Jones standing in the bar, drink in hand around the dart board this correspondent realised that the traditions of our club are safely being passed on to the next generation. However, what junior Williams was doing upstairs in an unlit room with these four young ladies will have to have a veil placed upon it, which is itself another Saddos tradition being passed on.