Match Report

Saturday, 25th April, 20^oC, flat deck and not a cloud in sight.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the Stragglers, with most of the team nowhere to be seen…

With Tribe T acting as co-match manager (and handed the captaincy for the day), Snape T was tasked with the toss. As ever, one should never toss with the mindset of simply “getting the fielding out of the way,” so Toby was swiftly persuaded, by his older brother, into batting.  The order more or less picked itself, largely on the basis of presence. Tribe’s confident “we’ll be there early” (interpreted as 11:25 for an 11:30 start) proved optimistic. By 11:35, the Gen Z cavalry (Smallwood B, Tribe, Balfour, Gilliland and Geffen) arrived – very ‘Inbetweeners-esque’ – in a battered VW Polo, kit bags spilling out of the windows. It later emerged that over half the side had been following England’s lead in Noosa – partying all night. Benny had been spotted leaving a Brixton nightclub at 4am, thus unable to drive that morning.

Despite this textbook Straggler preparation, the batting effort was anything but shambolic. Of the five batters used, four passed 50, all striking at comfortably over a run a ball. Fenwick was the only casualty (“I got a good one”) after slapping a half volley outside off straight to cover following a string of dot balls. The Stragglers finished on 290 from 44 overs and chose to declare, despite Tribe attempting to veto the decision, which left him stranded on 69.

Taking the field, one half of the opening pair was an easy call with Hugo fresh off a fourth bowling award on the bounce. The other spot was less certain – T. Snape or N. Wright – until a late intervention from Balfour (last seen bowling in a crop top and Birkenstocks in Rome). Declaring he’d been “doing yoga” and was now “bowling rapidly,” he talked his way into the attack.  It turned out to be a good decision. Hugo (5 for 17)and Balfour (2 for 47) tore through Tonbridge, leaving them three down early and in deep trouble at 10 overs (48 for 4), claiming seven wickets between them.  Gilliland – arriving that morning in an uncharacteristically polished designer outfit, resembling a Temu version of Bad Bunny – chipped in with three late wickets via what he described as “slow spin” (3 for 19), to bowl Tonbridge out for 121 in the 23^rd over.  All told, a comprehensive victory by 169 runs, the sixth-largest in Stragglers history, and redemption.