Last season we managed to play out a 20/20 in the pouring rain. This year the picturesque Windsor Great Park ground was all azure blue sky and golden fire. Our scorer Laurie called for a sun-shade and dispensed sunscreen. The skipper was as always horizontally tardy, (a hard crack to case?), however he made up for this by winning the toss and doing the right thing.

On a dry, dusty, lively track Westie and Vidishka gave us a good start. This momentum was maintained by the team with the stand out contribution coming from Prateek who was severe on anything short. Billy didn’t die thinking about it at the end of the innings and 168 looked pretty good.

The Windsor Great Park groundsman opened the reply and standing more than a yard outside his crease (in order to nullify the bounce), smote the ball all over the place. His innings had us all reeling until Ant did for him via a played-on inside edge. Galvanised, Ant then took a further three wickets (in five balls) including that of their skipper and a caught and bowled that looked like the first CGI dismissal. Billy took a wicket with his first delivery that looked like a bit of a ripper, Langley chipped in with a couple and Sunny polished off the tail. All told, a good performance and a happy return to winning ways.

Windsor Great Park boast the best showers anywhere, ever, the power of the water knocking you to the other side of the room and having finished early we supped a few pints and for the benefit of the skipper discussed the merits of early starts. Should it be 1.00pm or 1.30pm? No-one was sure. Except for the skipper who felt he was increasingly over-worked on Saturday nights. Should we play more 30 over games because 40s too long? Ant, who brokered the subjects, sat limpet-like to the fence, musing that 1.15pm and 35 overs would be best. The beshorted Langley won the bad behaviour award but the skipper’s one handed dropped catch was considered shabby when two is always better than one.