Capanelle Roma

Match Report

Stragglers arrived in Rome in time to brush up on their culture and history. However, very late nights ate into the itinerary, which was well summed up by Toby’s caption to a picture of the Trevi fountain – “no need to go to the coin pond, just look at this photo”. A number of major historical monuments were subject to Straggler ‘drive by tourism’, such as a photograph of the Colosseum at night from the window of a taxi proving sufficient.

The Capanelle ground to the south of the eternal city is a busy place, with an adjacent horse racing track/hippodrome, from which announcements could be heard all afternoon and also from which an escaping horse galloped past during the innings of our hosts. As evening approached, the church bells filled the sunset with sound, as a Lesser Kestrel soared and hovered over the outfield.

Before the start of play, Straggler Career Caps were presented to Benny for passing the keeping threshold in 2024 (he now sits on 32 victims, equal with Jasper), and to Patch, who finished 2024 on 1,998 runs, two short of the threshold.  He passed that mark in his first innings of 2025, a half century at Highland Court.

Having won the toss, George elected to bat and marched to the crease with Tom Tribe. George had an ambition for his innings – 50 and out, to keep his challenge for the batting award alive. Tom, however, had ambition to hit the ball to the Vatican. Sadly, his first attempt was struck very hard but vertically and he fell to the first of four good outfield catches. Benny seemed to have similar ambition, but he managed to clear the boundary (with his first shot) or swing wildly and miss the ball completely. He and George settled into a century partnership. They have, of course, only just been relieved of the record opening Straggler partnership and know each others’ idiosyncrasies at the crease. While building their innings, they were not allowed to get comfortable with any one bowler, as bowling changes were constant, and in the end everyone in the opposition squad, apart from the keeper, had a chance to bowl (12 used in all). George seemed to be cruising to his hundred, when he fell for 63, victim to another good outfield catch. Patch joined Benny, only to see him miss out on his half century, gone for 47, the first of two wickets for Man of the Match, Max Da Costa. Bowling with extreme lack of pace and good loop, Max proved irresistible but hard to deposit over the fence. Patch (31) fell to Max before Charlie (53*) and KP (14*) saw the innings to a close on 218 for 4, Charlie practicing assorted trick shots to good effect.

Hugo opened up for the Stragglers with immediate impact, catching an early edge to some very noisy celebrations, only to have the umpire point out that the ball was on the ground. Undeterred, he struck in the next over with an LBW decision in his favour, and again in the next, clipping the off stump. At the other end, Beetle was tying batsmen in knots, before Toby came on for a solitary over. An edge was denied, which fired Toby up somewhat, and he got his man three balls later, when a much more meaningful edge flew to Patch at slip (catch briefly considered for the champagne moment). Kieran, on to replace Hugo (3 for 24), also took a very sharp return catch to have the opposition teetering at 60 for 5. The Chairman failed to turn on the radar, bowling plenty of rubbish, but managed to get the ball in the air for Tom to take a truly remarkable one-handed catch over his head, just as we had all decided that it would make it to the boundary (very much a champagne moment contender). Sam Gilliland kept the other end very quiet, before persuading a batsman to find Hugo in the deep. Angus now put the knife in with a spell of 3 for 5, two catches for Tom at short mid-on. Tom then delivered the coup de grace with a dipping full toss to Max Da Costa to bring the innings to a close at 115 for 11.