Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Having handed Fladbury a humiliating defeat last year, they brought in reinforcements in the form of two Radfords: father Neal, good enough to play a few Tests (albeit only for England); and son Luke, only 13 but in the county squad and eventually to play for Leicestershire.
Fladbury batted first and struggled against Michael Love (1/46) and Daniel Mortlock (1/32), who reduced them to 24/2 in the 11th over. However, the second of these wickets brought Radford senior to the crease. He edged his first ball just short of slip, but having thus played himself in he showed the sort of contempt for our bowling that you'd expect from someone with 298 First Class innings under his belt. It wasn't so much the shot construction as the quickness of eye and sheer speed with which the ball came off his bat. Technically, he did give a chance, when he cut uppishly to Rob Harvey at point . . . but the only material result was the near destruction of Rob's thumb as the ball continued unimpeded to the boundary.
By this stage Radford Junior had joined his father in the middle, and they made merry before Neal arbitrarily retired on 80-odd. That meant some respite for us but not, as it turns out for the Fladbury middle order, one of whom had the temerity to decline a call for a quick single, after which Junior stalked down the pitch and informed his senior partner "When I call, you run."
Faruk Kara (1/47) did get at least get a wicket, as Rob miraculously took a catch with the bloodied wreck of his hand; but, really, it was just a case of waiting for Fladbury to declare, which they duly did on 224/4 after 39 fairly joyless overs.
Our target of 225 was nominal at best, but so much time had been wasted retrieving the ball from the neighbouring tennis courts and gardens that we only had to last about two hours, or not much more than 30 overs . . . which soon seemed likely to be way too many as we succumbed to Radford's medium pace. This would have been perfectly respectable had it been Neal sending down his international-quality outswingers, but it turned out Luke was actually primarily a bowler, and soon had four for not much. Only Michael Love (13), Charles Acworth (12) and Morris Bartlett (10) made it into double digits - although it was Rob's digits that remained the main focus. Having had his finger wrecked by Radford Senior, Radford Junior now set about inflicting similar damage on his foot, bowling him (for 1) with a yorker that, it subsequently turned out, broke his toe. As Rob hobbled back towards the pavilion he could at least comfort himself that his humilation was at an end . . . until he was informed that it was a no ball. Still, it can't have been more than another thirty seconds before a second yorker had bowled him again - and yes, off the same toe.
Still, we'd managed to at least hold things up to the point that by the time our 8th wicket fell (with our total just 70), there were just four overs of the final 20 remaining. Faruk Kara was joined by Daniel Mortlock and they set about dead-batting the game out - although initially there was no need for any sort of batting, as the bowlers couldn't get the ball on line, much to the annoyance of Neal, whose competitive juices were now engaged: "Come on, mehn, mek heem pleh!" Still, he didn't take the ball himself, instead showing what a big man he is by positioning himself at crazy mid-off, about a yard from the bat, comfortably within poking distance. With a lot of chat - sorry, chet - he tried to induce some aggressive shots, but to no avail: Faruk (3* off 20-odd balls) and Daniel (0* off 8 balls) shut up shop, securing the draw and preserving some measure of FAS honour.