Datchet - Sunday, 1st July 2001

Excellent Day - Excellent Game - Excellent Win.

At the President Stead's command we turned up dutifully at 12.30 for a "1.00pm" start only for Datchet to arrive for the correct kick off time of 2.00pm - I can only assume Steady was looking to sell computer training courses to a captive audience and when this failed he put them into the post match auction.

Captain Hounsell decided to go play computer games for the afternoon (Hence I am writing this report which seems double punishment for my afternoon's sins!) and was replaced by Hamish Marshall who after scanning the horizon and realising Michael Ntini would not be playing pledged his allegiance to LNZCC.

In between the 1.58 flight from Chicago and the 2.01 flight from Seattle the game got underway with Datchet electing to bat. Led by Mark Richardson (who heaven forbid almost hit a six!) the locals got off to a good, albeit at times rather fortuitous, start and a large score loomed off their allotted forty overs. However we stuck at our task pretty well on what was a lightning fast outfield on a very hot day and managed to restrict them to 220/6 when a much larger score was very much on the cards.

The Datchet attack, bolstered by Aaron Gale, the third member of the NZ trio on display, were soon realising that they may be up against it. Although most (excluding some who have remained nameless due to editorial discretion!) got starts and didn't kick on LNZ were always ahead of the run rate and the issue became whether would fold before reaching the target. However Shaun Perkinson (54) and Vance Thompson (41*), the latter again showing alarming levels of maturity and resolve, got us within shooting distance before Sean Martin and Vance brought us home with an over and a half to go and one wicket remaining.

By this stage the Berkshire council had still not closed down Steadies sausage stand (Oxford Circus next week?) and the Band had kicked in for what was some excellent post match entertainment and a fitting finale to what was aptly described at the start of the report as an excellent day out at Terminal number 5.

Another good win in what was a game of a high standard and another week where we have failed to upset our hosts - Marty we made need to recheck our constitution on this point! May have also been a good shop window for the club in terms of future fixtures and getting "names" involved when needed!

Finally, hats off to Steady & Dave Tikao who did an excellent job of putting it altogether!

Scoreboard  Datchet 220-6 (40 Overs) LNZ 221-9 (38.5 Overs) Wind to LNZCC by 1 wicket

Batting

Shaun Perkinson   54

Vance Thompson    41*