When one has had a good day at the office it's preferable for their team mates to write the report so they can heap lavish praise on said performance. However, everyone is hard at work (and I am not) so here goes...
We had spent all week talking about Hampstead's rooftop bar AKA 'the best beer garden north of the river' so it was a surprise when the captain and Elliot both turned up with cars. Baggsy proceeded a full meltdown when the team told him about the excellent public transport access to the ground and the £2 pints.
We won the toss and elected to field after some good run chases in the last couple of weeks. Elliot and I took the new ball and there was little assistance early on but we kept them to 30-1 off the first 10 overs. Hampstead had set a solid base by drinks and were 66-1. I swapped ends to come down the hill (and wind assisted) and with the keeper up, tight bowling and some extraordinary catching (A Smith and R Osmond in particular), we took 7-63 and had them 129-8 with Yours Truly taking all 8. Surely I couldn't take 10 wickets in an innings? It was on the cards until Baggsy produced a classy legside stumping off Stef for the 9th and then the final pair took a suicidal second run - I did my best to mess up Elliot's run-out but by then the dream was already over.
Hampstead bowled well with 3 of their bowlers having played against our 1st XI the previous week, but we chased it 6 down with plenty of overs to spare. Rory and Prydey both top scored with 26.
A great win capped off with a chaotic party to carry the Chimp into his 4th decade.
Author: Matt Swan