Many people would claim that tour isn't really about cricket at all, but is actually just an excuse to get together with mates to talk nonsense and consume moderate amounts of alcohol. If so, then Exhibit A for the prosecution would be the Cotswolds leg of the 2024 FAS Kazaam, with rain giving us two cricket-free days during which to channel our inner Withnail. There was at least sport to watch: the second week of Wimbledon; Jimmy Anderson's final Test at Lord's; and the Euro 2024 semi-finals, highlighted by England's 2-1 victory over the Netherlands to again make it to the final. This took place on a slightly surreal final day of tour: once we were informed that the Blockley ground was too wet for play, the traditional evening BBQ was moved forward to 3pm, with Pete Watkins listed as due to play a mammoth five-hour set to bridge the gap to the football. In the end he played on and off pretty much all day, starting before the food and finishing up at about 11pm following irresistible chants of "One more song! One more song!" Pete would have been a strong contender for character of the tour but for the fact that the awards had been deferred to the Kent leg due to the lack of cricket (although the same number of games was considered sufficient back in the flood year of 2007).

In the three fixtures that did go ahead FAS had a pretty good time of it: on the Sunday we defeated Bibury in a final-over thriller; and on the Monday we had the best of a draw at Temple Grafton and had all-but completed a good comeback win against Fladbury before being washed out. With all the games pushed to shorter formats due to the weather we managed a total of just 193 overs of cricket, fully a hundred fewer than we managed even during last year's rain-fest. Unsurprisingly, noteworthy individual efforts were restricted to single performances, the first of which was by Harry Houlder, who marked his 100th FAS game in some style, making a match-winning 67* (his highest score on tour) against Bibury, during which he also joined the exclusive FAS 1000-run club (taking exactly five times as many matches as the record-holder, James Wyatt, had needed). Jim Streeter almost matched Harry with a stylish 60 against Temple Grafton, although he was rather upstaged later in the same game by Hal Dare, who bludgeoned his first half-century for FAS (and in any form of senior cricket). The two stand-out bowling efforts, which took place simultaneously but ten miles apart, were a study in contrasts: staying at TG, Ben Kittow got us to within one wicket of victory during a 12-over marathon (the longest for the club since before Covid) on his way to figures of 5/50, his first ever five-for; while, under grey skies at Fladbury, Jamie Dare's opening spell of 5 overs, 5 maidens, 2/0, was the most economical in club history, and a study in discipline as the ball whizzed past the outside edge again and again. Astonishingly, Jamie's wasn't the only opening spell of 2/0 on tour, as Daniel Mortlock started off the Bibury game in the same way, taking his hundredth FAS wicket in the process. That wicket was, rather embarrassingly, from a leg-stump half-volley which should have been hit to the boundary - and, indeed, the ball was half-way there before being intercepted by James Wyatt's oustretched hand. Aside from taking the best catch of the tour, he was also the only outfielder who managed more than one - and only one wicket-keeper matched him, Dave Kittow taking two good catches at TG.

With such little current cricket to over-analyse, we found ourselves looking to the past, highlighted by a delightful rummage through the archival box of photos on the final night of tour. There was also some virtual rummaging through the records section of the web-site, which for most of us revealed a bunch of matches and players nobody could actually remember taking place. The one exception to this was James "Rain Man" Houlder, who simply had to enter his Mind Palace to recall entire tours in sequence: "Okay, what about 2005?" "Sunday, must have been Naunton, duck; then 99 at Temple Grafton; Tuesday was Blockley, I think 74 or 75 not out; . . .". It was as impressive as it was terrifying.

Another knock-on effect of the lack of cricket was that we spent a lot more time at Mill Dene, meaning more labours for Cliff and the Tina-led staff team, so even more thanks than usual are due to them - which took the physical form of a wine glass rack that was presented during the low-key ceremony on the Tuesday evening.

The Kent leg of the 2024 FAS Kazaam was, sadly, amputated at the knee even before it began, with the second of our two fixtures cancelled as Gills Green could muster just three players. That meant the cricketing aspects of the weekend rested squarely on the game against the Grannies at Newenden which, fortunately, was near-perfect: a tough come-from-behind win in a low-scoring game played under clear blue skies - even the grumpy local cafe owner stayed away.

One knock-on effect of the Sunday cancellation was that, for the first time since 2019, the awards could be decided on the basis of the full set of tour performances:

• Batter: Given that there were no really big scores against the Grannies, it was case of seeing how the three contenders from the Cotswolds leg had strengthened (or weakened) their case. Harry Houlder certainly provided good evidence to back up his new self-identification as a batter, top-scoring with 35 against the Grannies to take his season's tally to 102 runs at 102.00; and Jim Streeter's 21 (in difficult conditions against the new ball) took him to 81 runs at 40.50. Both, however, had made a tactical error by opting to play in a low-scoring match on a tricky pitch; whereas Hal Dare had cleverly stayed home, leaving untouched the emotional power of his maiden fifty against Temple Grafton, and the batting award duly went his way.
• Bowler: The bowling award was also a three-way race going in, with Ben Kittow's 5/50, again at TG, mirroring the grandeur of Hal's innings there, leaving Jamie Dare (2 wickets at 0.00) and Daniel Mortlock (3 wickets at 8.00) with some work to do. Jamie failed to dismiss any Grannies, meaning a comparative blow-out to 2 wickets at 3.50; Daniel took 2/12, sneaking past Ben's record of 5 wickets at 10.00 to top the averages with 5 wickets at 7.20; and, in a stunning effort coming from the rear (without the common courtesy of a reach-around) Cliff Dare took 4/23, to finish second in the averages with 5 wickets at 8.00. (Good sign for the future of the club that the bowling averages were led by two fifty-somethings.) If the Grannies' number eleven had survived a few more balls Cliff would surely have gotten the five-for to tip things in his favour; but, as with the batting, it was the single performance that stood out and the bowling award headed to Chez Kittow for the second time.
• All-rounder: The abbreviated nature of the tour, at least in cricketing terms, meant there were few credible candidates for this award as it presumes some level of both run-scoring and wicket-taking. Even lowering the bar to the absurdly low level of just requiring more than 20 runs and more than 1 wicket, there were only five candidates: Alex Clayton, with 31 runs at 15.50 and 2 wickets at 19.50; Jamie Dare, with 47 runs at 23.50 and 2 wickets at 3.50; James Houlder, with 25 runs at 25.00 and 3 wickets at 8.75; Daniel Mortlock, with 23 runs undismissed and 5 wickets at 7.20; and Jamie Scott, with 21 runs at 21.00 and 2 wickets at 12.50 (all from the Grannies' game). Of these, only Jamie D contributed significantly with bat and ball across multiple games, so was a deserved winner of the award (a decision which he subsequently vindicated by winning Sunday's single-wicket competition).
• Fielder: Not much happening here on paper, with only Daniel and James Wyatt taking more than one outfield catch - although Predicta's diving grab at Bibury was outstanding. So we had to instead look to other criteria, such as whether a fielder perhaps had to deal with a physical handicap or made a match-winning contribution. On these grounds tour first-timer Joe Day stood out, overcoming both the fact he'd dropped a catch of Cliff's bowling and his "curtainosaurus" hairstyle (possibly linked), to complete an excellent running catch to finish of the Grannies when they were seemingly a few overs from victory.
• Wicket-keeper: Chris Barras for the 13th time. Yawn.
• Most-improved young player: This award was decided by taking a formal mathematical approach, using set theory constructs to take the inner product of i) the set of young players and ii) the set of players for whom the Kazaam wasn't their first FAS tour (i.e., who at least could be said to have improved even in principle), to quickly yield a set with a set with a single element: Tommy Dare. While there wasn't much choice about who was going to be the MIYP, it was at least legitimate, as he seems to have doubled in both size and strength in the last year - and he would have had a bowling average of 4.00 on tour if we hadn't elected to recall one of the opposition batters in the Bibury fixture in order to make a game of it.
• Character of the tour: There really was only one character of the tour, in so far as everyone else boringly attended as themselves - whereas Tom Hall opted instead to adopt the sort of deep cover identity rarely seen outside the works of John le Carre. The starting point of the deception was a complicated contract negotiation with a Brazilian company for which things had reached a critical stage, necessitating an in-person visit, for which the only available flight landed at Gatwick on Friday evening. Tom hence headed down to the south from Cambridge for what was likely to be an exhausting weekend working late and probably not getting much sleep - and it was so last-minute that he didn't even have time to remove his cricket kit from the car . . .
• Bin juice: This was a literal no-brainer, with Matt Siebert falling into one of the classic traps (right up there with starting a land war in Asia), when he guessed both unecessarily and incorrectly about whether a relationship was parental or romantic in nature.

After a pretty civilised Saturday evening - no Fasopoly, and all bar a few younglings in bed by midnight - Sunday was actually pretty lively, with lawn cricket, some tennis . . . but, sadly, no actual cricket. Tom and Harry spent most of the morning devising a scrupulously fair format for a single-wicket competition, although the number of entrants decreased at the rate of about one an hour througout the morning. The end result was a pretty lethargic affair which was all too reminiscent of the 2021 internal Hundred debacle. Jamie Dare did get suddenly competitive at the end with the result that he both defended FAS's honour - the one Gills Green entrant, Al Herbert, had defeated the rest of us to make the final - thus winning his second all-rounder title of the weekend.

Given that we only spent two hours up at Gills Green, the basic reality was that Sunday was just spent enjoying Joss and Victoria's incredible hospitality, so thanks once again to them for giving us a wonderful end to the cricket season.