Report by Speedo.

Of course the over night rain would have caused some concern by as we were playing Reading CC we knew they'd have covers and the pitch would be a belter. Yes they had covers but they'd leaked and the pitch was patchwork of rock hard dry spots and damp slippery areas. I dreaded loosing the toss and did. I quickly wondered what excuse I'd use for batting 7 when their skipper said 'we're bat'. I nearly asked if I'd heard right but thought he might change his mind so walked back wondering how string they must be to have batted on what looked like a minefield.

Of course they got off to a flyer despite James' stumping/run out. Naz had come in for as a late replacement for Ram and filled his shoes by arriving late! Once he and Rags had taken over from the openers we took a tight grip. Naz combined with Rags to remove the number 3 who looked like a class bat. The other opener tried a couple of times to join his colleague 'run out' and a combo of Meady and Naz did the trick. The next few wickets went in a clatter including a hat-trick ball for Naz.

They'd gone from 50ish for 1 to 75ish for 7. They dug in and the ball flew past stumps, fielders and pads. With chances coming all the time I started to wonder if we'd ever take one when Doc dived forward and juggled a catch before clutching to his bosom from Rags' bowling.  The square leg ump adjudged he's not caught it. There followed the biggest outburst since Raj at Ruislip Victoria. Fortunately reasonably soon after Brian picked up the wicket he deserved and the final two wickets fell quickly. Reading 4 111ao in 37 overs.

We had a tricky 10 overs to cope with before tea. We lost Micky but Agers quickly got into his stride with some good blows down the ground. Meady set out his stall with 2 scored in the session. After tea Agers went unluckily played on off a short ball that he couldn't wait for. Meady continued in sloth like scoring mode regularly picking out their best fielder.

Fortunately extras was performing across wides, no balls and byes and Charlie was happy to hit for bad balls for four rather than using Meady's technique of patting them to a fielder! Charlie and Crofty went late on but with 30 overs gone Meady crawled us across the line.

So we're off with a win and well done. The pitch was a potential banana skin avoided and their painfully slow batting especially between overs nearly delayed the win until the rain or darkness descended but we came through.