Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Our 2003 Amble finished (as most do) at home, playing both at and against Blockley. It was a glorious day and so it was no surprise that Blockley chose to bat first upon winning the toss, no doubt in the expectation that their top order would be able to settle in . . .
. . . but a combination of decent bowling, poor batting and even worse running left them at a scarcely believable 27/7 after 11 overs. On the bowling front the unexpected star was Alex Stone, who took 2/3 before injuring himself. Joe White's first spell of 2/15 was, while obviously decent, a comparative disappointment given his FAS-best return of 5/9 here last year. And Simon Cartwright (1/23) deservedly opened his FAS account. That Blockley's batting was poor is evidenced by the fact that all five wickets taken by these three were bowled (something that, according to James Houlder, should never happen to good batsmen - but he said that before he was himself bowled later in the day). But the running between wickets was even worse - the last thing a team needs when, say, 22/4 or 27/6, is a run out. Blockley did make something of a recovery from there, as their 8th wicket pair more than tripled their total, but we then finished things off pretty efficiently as Daniel Mortlock (1/21) and Joe (2/13 in his second spell, to finish with 4/28) took Blockley's final wickets with 5 of their nominal 35 overs unused.
A target of 111 to win didn't seem too daunting, and even when we fell to 11/3 there was no real worry, as James Houlder led us past the half-way mark with a confident-looking 23 off 30 balls (before, as already mentioned, being bowled). However, after a sudden burst of wickets by Stephen Vick (4/36, despite the turbulent drag forces induced by his mullet), we found ourselves in serious at trouble at 71/7: 40 runs still needed with just 2 wickets in hand (as we were playing one short). Blockley were now clearly ahead for the first time all day; but we did at least have a dozen of our 35 overs remaining, so the remaining batsmen could eschew unnecessary risks. And that's exactly what they did, being particularly disciplined against our own Harry Houlder, whose figures of 0/17 for the opposition induced the unsympathetic comment "PONGOED AGAIN!" by whoever was scoring. Simon Cartwright scored a solid 9* (off 18 balls) in his first FAS innings and Daniel Mortlock nurdled his way to 50* (off 61 balls) before finishing the chase in style with consecutive boundaries off Vick.