Overtaken by the report of the victory against Brighton & Hove Crescent CC, here is the belated report on the match against Headley on Sunday 1st May.

As seems the norm for this fixture, it was a damp, cloudy and fairly chilly afternoon as a Nuthurst XI packed with experience assembled at Headley’s picturesque heathland/woodland ground. Despite the presence of young bucks DT, James Simpson and Ollie Prior - and even younger buck Lewis Hargis, the average age of the group still represented the Saga marketing department’s dream demographic.

The 35 over format was agreed, the toss was won and Nuthurst duly found themselves fielding in a persistent drizzle that called for bar towels to be deployed to keep the soaking wet ball as dry as possible. Guy Ekins was heading for an afternoon at first slip until Raggy surprised him with the news he was keeping wicket. More on that later.

James Simpson and Raggy opened the bowling and Nuthurst were rewarded early doors as Raggy dismissed opener Cowie lbw for 4, after a loud, long and lonely appeal to the umpire.

Headley then consolidated things well with the left/hand right hand combination of Jenkins and Miles, who moved the score along briskly, aided by some early season fielding – erm – idiosyncrasies, including a dropped catch in the deep by your correspondent who managed not to prevent the ball from connecting painfully with his larynx whilst shelling the chance, a balletic Scooby Doo-like running on the spot followed by a Bambi-like collapse in a tangle of his own legs by Olly Prior, and some spectacular diving over the ball as it sped to the boundary by Jeremey James. Needless to say, these misdemeanours were all noted and received appropriate finage.

Your correspondent made amends by bowling a tidy spell in the middle of the innings, slowing down the run rate along with Jonny Willis, although both remained wicketless. A note should be made at this point that only 4 byes were let through by Guy – and these all came from one leg-side pie delivery from Morris. As well as bagging the opener early, Raggy also dismissed Jenkins, bowled eventually for 94. James Simpson picked up Winslet leg before for 6.

Bowling honours for the day, however, went to Jeremy James for his 6 overs, 3 for 47, but there must be extra special mention in dispatches for young Lewis Hargis who bowled brilliantly in challenging conditions 5 overs, 1 for 38 – the dismissal being Barton for a duck, clean bowled by an absolute jaffa.

Headley finished on 211 for 7 from their allotted overs, which felt about par.

After an excellent tea (remember those?), Jonny and Guy rekindled days of yore to start the chase. Guy was looking good on 13 including a couple of trademark elegant boundaries when he was bowled by Waller. Raggy came and went quickly for an un-Raggylike 1, quickly followed by David Thompson, for an equally uncharacteristic 2. At the other end, however, Jonny Willis was beginning to rumble into life – keen to make amends for his first-ball-of-the-season duck against Ardingly, he brutally dispatched anything short or wide. He was joined in the middle by Trevor “The Nun of Bath” Boughton who delivered an innings that, although not high scoring (he made 5 before being run out), was so dogged and determined that it infuriated the Headley bowlers and fielders and allowed Jonny to reap the benefits and reach his century at the other end. Trevor finally departed with the score on 133 in the 27th over, leaving Nuthurst to get an unlikely 79 off the last 8 overs for the win.

James Simpson joined Jonny in the middle and proceeded to spank his first two deliveries for 4 and all of a sudden it was game on, as he and Jonny bludgeoned the tiring Headley bowlers to all corners. Things could have been different if the Headley fielder in the deep had hung on to an extremely well-struck shot from James, but he only succeeded in parrying the ball over the boundary for 6.

It could still have gone either way until Jonny hit a towering shot over deep extra cow for yet another maximum (and a lost ball). A few balls later and Nuthurst had secured the victory with an over and a bit to spare.

James remained undefeated on a quickfire 33, and Jonny carried his bat for a magnificent 131, which included 21 boundaries.

It was certainly not a day for the fielders, but it was a game that had everything else.

After a couple of drinks with our hosts, a crack sub-team led by the inestimable centurion Mr Willis, retired to the pub and celebrated the victory in some style, with many pints and a hotly contested darts match.