Wind and rain equals doom and gloom

First of all the wind ... sight screens blown over, covers moving around of their own volition, nobody wanting to bowl into it ... then the rain, when added to the toll of injuries, holiday unavailability, and power-cuts-messing-up-travel-plans-unavailability ... made for a hard day a l'office sur Saturday.

No-brainer to bowl first, as Northwood's workaholic skipper did on winning the toss ... and X (Eklavya Sharma) looked in prime form when pinging boundaries around, while Ahsan kept him company. X had scored 23 of our 24 when a very full ball from a change bowler bowled him, beyond doubt, good job as bails, heavy or not, had been abandoned by this stage. Ahsan and Charles struggled, as did Sathees, but Neil and Sanjay put together a solid partnership to get us back on the right track. Sanjay's very responsible 23 was a welcome return to form, and if Krunal struggled to find the fluency of his work at Northwood in the corresponding fixture, he too hung around in the face of terrible conditions.

Arjun, who had made such hay along with Krunal back then, was the one stranded when the train services were driven into chaos by power cuts, and his big hitting could have made all the difference. Gregg arrived at tea came along after finishing work, to watch, and was prevailed upon (with the agreement of the opposition skipper) to act as sub fielder. Unfortunately this did not end well as he aggravated his knee injury which had required surgery and the immediate prognosis was not good at all. No good deed goes unpunished!

Neil kept going with his Camden Kallis persona, broad bat and ruthless accumulation, and it was only when accompanied by Tom that he felt able to relax a bit, and reached a deserved 50 (52*) in the final over, watched by the President. 153 was a decent working total but the rain began to fall, and after lots of on-off nonsense with the covers, eventually a reduced total was agreed upon.

Charles and Neil bowled decent spells with the new ball, Neil picking up the wicket of prolific opener Watson, Sathees and X kept it very tight, and for a long spell we were ahead on run rate, though Northwood did still have wickets in the bag. Sanjay (2-fer) and Krunal bowling very slowly gave no pace to work with, but the experienced batting line-up (1-4) had it all worked out ... after one more rain break the modest target, 140 from 41, was entirely gettable, and it was duly got.