Report by Daniel Mortlock

This was probably the biggest grudge match on the FAS tour this year, with the Butterflies. The underlying reasons for this can perhaps be discerned from their own description on their web-site: "The Butterflies Cricket Club was founded in 1862 by [...] Rugbeians who had not won 1st XI colours [and] in 1864 membership was extended to young men who had been educated at i Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Westminster, and Winchester."

The Butterflies' captain struck first blood when he called correctly at the toss, although given the conditions (recorded as "fine/cloudy" by the unbelievably fastidious scorer, who recorded himself as "C.F. Muteau ACU/ACUSA") it was perhaps a good toss to lose. Still, the Butterflies opening bowlers had the better of things for the first hour, delivering 7 maidens in the first 14 overs, after which the score was just 27/0. But perhaps the "0" was the key thing there, as our openers, Bob Dean and Cliff Dare, were still out in the middle . . .

. . . which is where they stayed until the teams went off lunch two hours later, with the score now 171/0 after 33 overs (meaning that the last 19 overs had yielded 144 runs). Bob and Cliff ended up staying together until the 37th over, eventually putting on 213 runs (a club record) from 223 very enjoyable deliveries before Bob was bowled for 82 off 103 balls. Cliff, however, was just getting started, barely stopping to acknowledge his century and racing past his own club record score. While it took him 78 balls to get to 50, his next 100 runs took just 59 balls, and he seemed on track for a double century . . . only for the captain to declare on him. (All sympathy should stop there, however, as Cliff was of course the captain in question.) We finished on 287/1 (our highest team total), with Cliff on 166* from 153 balls, having received good support from Chris Barras (27* off 27 balls).

Our three hours of domination was great, but there was the still significant task of bowling out what seemed likely to be a strong Butterflies batting line-up. Still, we were able to make regular breakthroughs, Jon Staniforth (3/26) as Colin Dean (2/9) reducing the Butterflies to 36/6 in the 22nd over. At this point the Butterflies' lower order set about blocking out until time, an endeavour in which they were reasonably successful. When the 20-over countdown began at 6pm they were 99/7, and half an hour later we'd made no further progress and were running out of time. There was only one thing for it: throw the ball to our opening batsmen. Bob (0/3) was suitably economical, but that didn't help our cause . . . and, given everything that had gone before, it was somehow inevitable that Cliff (3/12) would finish things off, the first ball of his seventh over trapping the Butterflies' top-scorer in front to complete both FAS's greatest individual performance and biggest ever victory.