Report by Daniel Mortlock:
Having lost three of our last four (completed) matches against Fladbury, it was reasonable to think that we might have a tough match on hands today, an impression reinforced when Fladbury's opening bowlers delivered 3 maidens in the first 8 overs.
But from there it was one-way traffic - and all in our direction. The first of our batsmen to start scoring freely was Cliff Dare, who seemed odds-on make good Hal's seemingly foolish bet that, having started the day with 225 runs for once out, he'd pass 300 runs for the tour. We were thus subjected to a count-down of sorts ("How many runs does Dad have now?" "Three." "How many runs does Dad have now?" "Still three." and so on) as Cliff plundered the Fladbury attack. But, having got to 50 off just 52 balls, leaving just 25 still needed, he managed to top-edge an attempted sweep against a twelve year-old bowling nude balls and the dream - and Hal's money - was gone.
For the all-powerful 2008 FAS batting line-up, however, the fun had just begun, as Jim Streeter (78 off 53 balls) joined Jamie Scott (57 off 53 balls) to put together a 101-run partnership in just 59 balls, the fastest FAS partnership on record. After ten-over splits were 38/1, 82/1 of 95/1, we were all but guaranteed to score the 73 further runs we needed to pass the club record score of 287/5 that had stood since Tuesday, and so the focus once again turned to the mythical 300 . . . which, thanks to a quickfire 26* (off 19 balls) by James Wyatt, we passed with two balls to spare.
It was hard to imagine what was clearly a weak Fladbury side getting anywhere near our total, but if anything the first innings rather hid the scale of the mismatch. Joss Dare (2/28) and Daniel Mortlock (5/9) ran through the Fladbury top order in quick time, reducing them to 30-odd/6. And it really should have been 30-odd/7 when Rob Harvey's young son Joe, playing for the opposition, inside-edged his first ball onto his stumps, seemingly giving Daniel both his first ever five-for and his first ever hat-trick (in any form of cricket). But, foolishly, nobody remembered to appeal, and so umpire Geoff Hales had no choice but to apply Law 27.1 ("Neither umpire shall give a batsman out, even though he may be out under the Laws, unless appealed to by the fielding side").
That then paved the way for what was not only the most remarkable bowling spell of the day, but possibly in all FAS history. Dave Harvey came on to bowl to his nephew, whom he eventually dismissed, one of three wickets he took in his 8 overs. Nothing so special there, you might think, but for the fact that Dave also managed to concede 78 runs, 28 of which were in the form of wides. Fladbury's 8th wicket pair thus more than doubled their total, before Andy Trowbridge finished things off with a spell of 1/6, thus completing our second biggest runs victory.