There are always signs when its going to be a long day.

For the Huncote team it was when the day’s opening over consisted of 12 balls due to six wide deliveries, for Woodhouse’s bowlers it was when the day’s second over included 3 dot balls but still cost 16 runs.

Thus began the relegation battle that was played out between the two teams.

Despite being a bowler light Woodhouse put Huncote into bat and play began. With more than a little bravado Huncote skipper Brian Driver continued the insane experiment of putting the hideously out of form Mark Schutz out as an opener, with his fourth batting partner in as many games in the shape of Carl Spencer.

It was the unfortunate Carl Spencer who watched as the 12 ball over that began the game took shape, only one ball really worthy of any attention but with 6 scored off the first over you can’t complain. The next over saw Schutz adopt the windmill approach to batting and managed, against all odds, not to get himself out before the umpire had had time to button up his jacket.

It couldn’t last and the next over saw Carl Spencer surprised by a ball delivered on the stumps and Huncote’s first wicket fell with the score on 24.

Alan Sommer came to the crease and, having been hit on the forearm by a rising delivery, joined in with his partners foolhardy slogging approach to batting. Schutz bludgeoned, sliced and edged his way to 50 at the start of the 11th over and promptly dropped anchor on account of being a unfit good-for-nothing pie-muncher who couldn’t run anymore.

By this stage Woodhouse were glad to see the left handed Al Sommer on strike, whether they were quite so happy to see him promptly lose the match ball, with a wonderful hooked six over square leg, or shortly after lose the spare with a straight six back over the bowlers head, is another matter.

Huncote were rattling along at around 8 an over by this point, but the partnership was halted with the score on 127 when Al Sommer was out for 42.

Ross Spencer was pushed up the order as Brian Driver suddenly had to contend with the one thing that hadn’t happened too often recently, the top order scoring runs.

Normal service looked to have been resumed when the newly promoted Spencer was bowled by a fiendish ball from Neville Freestone that not only skidded through but also cut back into him.

Swords strode out to the crease to join the, now almost pedestrian batting of Schutz who had really rammed on the brakes having reached 50 and seemed determined to make any other runs he would collect drag out as long as possible.

Schutz was also determined to avoid any repeat of the farcical run out the two had participated in the week before, at one point turning down a single to square leg when he mistook the square leg umpire for a fielder.

Drinks were taken, no one more surprised than Schutz, who had realised that for the first time in four games for the 2nd’s, he wouldn’t be carrying them out to the batsmen but was instead still at the crease.

Swords batted himself in, and there was a long period of nothing much more than 1’s and 2’s being scored, in Swords’ case being elegant pushes into the gaps, in Schutz’s case a series of lucky edges (both inside and outside) and more than the occasional shot being clipped away using the cue end of the railway sleeper he uses for a bat.

A mad flurry of boundaries (for which read, “thick edges coming from some more mindless windmill like swings) with his second wind saw Schutz to 97 before a combination of tiredness, and the absurd notion that after 2 hours at the crease he’d turned from “mindless slogger” to “batting artiste”, saw him attempt to guide a ball round the corner into the vast openness of the square/fine leg area and was bowled leg stump.

Huncote then began a swift game of pass the duck as, in no particular order, Carl Sommer, Brian Driver and finally Kev Dyke all emulated Ross Spencer by failing to trouble the scorers. This combined with the loss of Maximus Swords after a well crafted innings, and young Ben Crossley for 5, saw JW Smith join Arthur Knibbs at the crease with the score on 220-9 after only 37 overs.

Thoughts of a declaration kicked in, not from any thoughts relating to needing the extra overs to bowl Woodhouse out, but from hunger as more than one stomach began to complain at being made to wait for tea, the first 35 overs of the innings having taken 2 hours and 35 minutes to bowl.

These thoughts were soon forgotten as the Huncote players were then treated to the wonderful spectacle of Arthur and JW successfully combine solid defence with controlled aggression to put on an unbeaten partnership of 53 as Huncote finished on 273-9

Woodhouse had to come out and attack the Huncote bowling as a defeat would widen the gap between the two clubs to around the 50 point mark, but never looked on as wickets fell in both Brian Driver's and JW’s first overs.

With 270+ runs to play with Huncote could afford to attack and this saw the introduction of both Kev Dyke and Ross Spencer into the bowling attack inside the first 15 overs, both collecting wickets, Ross beating the batsmen for pace, Kev seeing Carl Spencer pick up his second catch of the day close in.

When the wickets seemed to dry up Maximus Swords was introduced into the attack to bowl a varied selection of the much vaunted “mystery ball” deliveries that either beat the bat or saw the fielders crushing down the foliage to find the ball. It worked as Stanhope was bowled off his legs and then, following the launch of a ball over the large tree in the corner of the ground, he held on to one hit straight back at him to give him his second wicket of the match.

At the other end Ben Crossley finally got what his bowling deserved, having found the edge on at least five occasions, all finding gaps or falling short of the fielders, or on one occasion clear the keeper, slip and both gully’s to run down the hill he finally picked up a wicket as the slower ball found the edge which was then pouched, clumsily by the keeper.

A second wicket came as he found the stumps and had the honour of taking the final wicket as another edge, this time a much thicker one sliced to Brian Driver at cover and Woodhouse were all out for 169.

The score was soon phoned back to base, at which point it was discovered that the 1sts had finished around 6pm, a good couple of hours before the 2’s who now have the trip out to Great Glen to look forward to.

Man of the Match- Mark Schutz

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