10/07/11 - Hutton, Essex

A terrific game. I was captain for the day. By mutual agreement with the oppo skipper we bowled first, and started terribly. I was completely hungover again, and bowled like an absolute drain. Turns out being hungover really impedes the bowling too: I kept dropping short all the time. You really need to be bowling a decent amount if you want to be accurate - back in the day I bowled about 20 overs in a weekend and I reckon you need to do at least half that, and some in the middle of the week, if you want to avoid giving a four ball every over.

Fortunately our second string bowled absolutely brilliantly, and we managed to restrict them. Would like to take some credit for the field placings - we caught pretty much everything, in some part due to my making sure the three people who could catch were standing in the right place.

Our reply started really well. At 40-0 we fancied our chances. But one of our openers went to a bad bit of luck, (a slightly too-soft-handed defensive shot saw the ball dribble onto the stumps), while the guy hitting all the runs went LBW. Numbers three and four were lesser players whom I'd bumped up the order so that they could get a go, and neither of them contributed much.

I then came in and cruised to 15, before some absolutely horrible luck. I went for a cover drive to a full, slow ball, and slightly misjudged the length, the ball hitting the toe of my bat. Normally that wouldn't be a problem - you certainly wouldn't expect it to somehow dribble back onto the stumps. Never been out like that before, probably never will again. Odd thing, batting - it was totally my fault for not timing the shot a fraction better, but it felt like I'd been totally robbed.

We scrapped our way towards the total, but with three overs to go our last pair were at the crease, with 11 to win. One was a batsman I'd stuck down the order to fight fires in case we were 40-8 (we usually are), the other a bona fide number 11. The bowling was good - fast and straight - and the batsman I'd put down the order ended up having to see out the final over.

It was a thrilling ending. to a great game, played in fantastic spirit against a lovely bunch of blokes. Hutton is a proper club (they field five teams), and this was very much an occasional Sunday side, but they still dug out some good players for us. The wicket was excellent, with something for the bowlers but not too much, and even though I contributed absolutely nothing of any value I really enjoyed it. I guess the fact it was such a close game made it better. It's relatively rare you get a close game played in good spirits too - often it's either one or the other. Really want to play there next year.