After turning up to Harwell with 7 we kind of feared the worst. Luckily after speaking to one of the Harwell players he was able to roped in 3 lads from his Saturday club; Cumnor, whose game had been rained off. After the toss was won the Skipper decided to have a bat... to the reply from Jurgo " I would of bowled there Matt" which so nearly came back to haunt him by the can. So myself and Jason opened the batting; after Jason had led me to believe he was in top form, but after his previous game's (141, 70 odd, 60 odd and a 50 odd) Jason was no where near that standard being bowled for just 1 by a ball diving in on him. Manoj came in at number 3, and put on a steady but strong partnership with the skipper (14 runs from the 10^th to 20^th over – very steady!) putting on a near on 50 stand before Galbraith was stumped off the pads of the keeper for 27 straight after drinks... This brought in Jack, our first “guest” player, but he soon fell for 3.  Jurgo was next man in, and again with Manoj built a solid partnership. Jurgo fell for 25 and very soon after Manoj fell after a superb 58. With only 3 overs left the tail tried to wag but failed miserably as the last 4 wickets (remember we were up to 10 players now) only added 10 runs to leave The Park 135 all out with 4 balls of the 40 overs remaining.
 
A tea which included a mega large plate of coronation chicken plus two of pizzas plus large egg sandwiches went down well with the majority of the lads (but not skipper). Park took to the field and wickets soon started to fall; Noble and Pierre (another Cumnor lad) had soon reduced Harwell to 17-5 from the first 10 overs. A double bowling change saw Dan West (3^rd Cumnor player) and Dipin come on to bowl. Westy soon had the 6th wicket making Harwell 23-6. Harwell started to hit some runs and were homing in on the target scoring at around 4 runs an over, so after another change of bowling Herro came on and slowed things up at one end while Galbraith took 2 crucial wickets at the other. The game seemed to be back in Welford's hands until Breaker and Webb started to collect some easy runs. Breaker was dropped by du Plessis off Miell (both Cumnor boys) and 30 runs were now required from 5 overs. Noble had returned to the attack and in the 37^th over with the score on 111 bowled Breaker (17).
 
The last man was Harwell’s junior (Bradley) who came out with a runner. The umpire did not know why and the lad eventually said he was injured in yesterdays game (but he still did bowl 6 overs). Reluctantly the skipper (as he is so kind) let him keep the runner which shortly was to work to our advantage. The first attacking shot he played he seemed to forget he had a runner sprinting to the other end quicker than his runner. Having left his ground, which Herro (who else) spotted, Dipin got the ball to Jurgo’s gloves who duly removed the bails resulting in the run out of the striker by some 20 yards! and thus the final wicket. This resulted in John Westbrook's love child (to his credit, a very good no. 10 and probably very disappointed having battled through to get Harwell within touching distance of the target) having a Matty type tantrum throwing all his toys and rattles out of the pram about our reaction to the no. 11 having a runner, even though we let him have one and then running him out because he did not know the Laws regarding the use of a runner.
 
Anyway, a Park win by 21 runs, with 20 balls left which is now 3 Sunday win's in a row. Next week is Challow & Childrey and it looks like six of the magnificent seven are available. A week to find five more players…..lol
 
The “Blue Stripe” winner – That went to Jason for bragging about his form only to get bowled for one and then to blame the skipper for his performance.
 
Matty