Report by Daniel Mortlock and Jim Streeter on the 16:12 from Etchingham to London:
The now traditional late-season game against the Grannies began - or, really, failed to do so - with the now traditional demonstration of Xeno's Paradox: 12:30pm was agreed well in advance; then, a few hours out, the Grannies' match manager Will Siebert updated us with the news that his guys would be ready for a 12:45pm start, which was roughly when the coin was tossed, at which point word went out that play would begin at 1pm. The first ball was, of course, delivered about five minutes after that.
Faced with some decent bowling on a tricky pitch, our top order of Jim Streeter (23 off 28 balls), Dave Kittow (6 off 20 balls) and captain Jamie Scott (21 off 40 balls) did pretty well, taking us to 60/2 after 13 of 35 overs. However, when the Grannies slowed down their bowling our scoring rate responded in kind, just 29 runs coming from the next 10 overs, as Harry Houlder and "Jaimie" Dare (7* off 22 balls and 6* off 23 balls at this stage) both struggled to do more than knock the occasional single. Still, playing conservatively was better than throwing their wickets away, and they eventually reaped the rewards of their patience, making 35 off 52 balls and 33 off 43 balls (top two scores of the day) before both being dismissed by Stoney, purveying for the Grannies. The second of these wickets brought in Cliff Dare in the final over with with four balls left, the first of which he aimed into the two metre gap between the boundary line and the trees (which counted only as a four), hitting the target with the precision of Luke Skywalker bulls-eyeing womp rats in his T-16 back home. Our late run spurt took us to 155/6, which, while hardly an imposing total, was at least something we could work with.
Our an ideal start to our defense, with Daniel Mortlock (2/12) bowling the Grannies' young opener in the first over, we largely kept a lid on their scoring rate, which never got above 4 an over . . . although we also started droping catches - if a few of those had stuck we'd have been able to kill the game off there and then. FAS first-timer Joe Day (1/22) showed himself to be a fast-learner: having immediately realised we couldn't be trusted in the field, he instead opted to bowl the Grannies' number three with his first ball for FAS. Displaying serious pace and bounce, he didn't concede a run until his third over, at which point the fantasy ended as he lost his vertical hold, sending down - or at least across - a waist-high full toss which passed Siebert Snr amidships and induced a surprisingly protracted bout of finger-wagging from our sometime FAS team-mate. Things got worse a few overs later when Joe added to the now team-wide dropsy epidemic when he shelled a moderately-difficult, but definitely catchable, chance - bad enough of itself, but made so much worse by the fact it was off the bowling of Cliff. It was at around this time we were becoming resigned to defeat: after 20 overs the Grannies were 80/3, with two well-set batters at the crease and some 90 balls to score the 76 runs they still needed.
More important than the scoreboard situation, however, was that Joe's drop, combined with the fact that he'd been hit for 15 from his first two overs, had "deployed the Cliff", who then started steaming in (both figuratively and literally), taking 4/8 from his next 4 overs, a match-winning spell which was his best since the early noughties. With Scottie (2/25) also taking a couple of wickets, we'd all but won the game - the only remaining barrier was Tahir Khan, who was batting as well as he bowled earlier in the day to keep the Grannies up with the run rate. When Tahir connected well with another big drive it seemed that would take the Grannies within 40 runs, only for Joe D. to come swooping around from long-off, ignoring the handicap of his curtain-like fringe to complete a match-winning catch - sporting redemption in a form which perhaps only cricket can provide.
The last rites were then delivered (yes, again in both senses) by our own "pound shop Chris Woakes", Charlie Prifti. A couple of wides gave Cliff a chance to convert his nickname to a range of different currencies, after which he bowled the Grannies number eleven for what was recorded in the scorebook as a "GOLDEN DUCK". Charlie finished with tidy figures of 1/3 and we'd taken the last 7 Grannies wickets for 35 runs to win by an implausibly comfortable margin of 39 runs.
With the Sunday fixture against Gills Green in more than just serious doubt - their overnight contingent of three players had gone down to two during the day - this was likely a mighty satisfactory end to the 2024 FAS Kazaam, a true team victory on a glorious late summer's day in an idyllic setting (with no appearance from the deranged local cafe owner). After a few convivial pints in the local it was time to head back to the Mill, secure in the knowledge of a job well done.