Svanholm CC

When arranging this fixture I made the optimistic (you could say absurd) comment that ‘we sometimes have county-standard players’, which is true when Akshay or Malcolm Birks play for us, but is deeply unrealistic most of the time. Anyway, it helped us to get this fixture, against a kind of reserve side for the national club champions, at the Danish national cricket ground. What it didn’t do was produce a competitive fixture.

At least we took some wickets, with Steve leading the bowling figures for a change, James and Tim chipping in and their total of 231 in 40 overs felt somehow achievable as we sat in the swish pavilion eating tea, hearing how their number five had played for Hampshire.

Back out in the middle, overlooked by our team of three scorers (Clare, Jess and Debbie) gleefully at the helm of the electric scoreboard, things took a speedy turn for the worse. Andy Hosken was out second over, then Steve, Brian and David were out cheaply; Tucker, despite about half an hour’s sleep, offered some resistance to back up James Weymes’s fluent 32, but we were out of our league and back in the hutch soon enough. Splendid ground and entertaining hosts.