The fixture list was kind enough to throw up a match against our old friends Chris Baines and Matt Carter, now plying their trade for Soulbury.

Cublington fielded another young side (someone needs to cover in the field for Middleton senior, Taylor Senior, Gadsby senior and Farr, aka young Mr Grace). Cubs won the toss and batted, limping into action with Middleton M and Stuart Bridgen. Martin did not detain us for long, and nor did JT at three, although Gadsby T and Bridgen put on a few for the third wicket. Tim Taylor then joined Stu in blasting sixes to all corners of the ground, our major partnership of the innings. Tom P-W made a brief visit to the crease having earlier contributed beautifully when umpiring at square leg by getting under the feet of a Soulbury fielder to stop him preventing a boundary. TPW is henceforth to be known as 'Speedbump'. The Wazir of Farrzi added a few, including the speciality slap to leg. Gadsby H holed out first ball. Harvey Knights and BPW added a gloss of respectability to the score at the end in getting us to 155 all out.

After a sumptuous tea Cubs set about defending a score that felt at least 30 runs light on a ground with short boundaries. Gadsby T and Bridgen bowled tightly with only 33 runs from the bat in the first 16 overs. Despite numerous edges beaten and stumps narrowly missed Soulbury only lost one wicket. That did at least bring Lance Corporal Baines to the crease. Kind of the care home to allow the old fellow out for the day, we thought. He scratched around for hours in the old Baines fashion taking about 30 balls to get off the mark. His first boundary, with his trademark 'snake killing shot' was greeted with rapturous applause from the entire Cublington side: 'Another Bainesy fifty!'. Bainesy hung around long enough, soaking up dozens of balls for 'dot' to give Cublington hope. A great shame that we finally got him out. After 20 overs the score was just 70, and the introduction of Farrsie and the ultra-dependable BPW brought wickets. Six fell in total with Farrzie getting a cheeky four-fer. Gadsby H and Oscar Middleton took over the bowling with the rain now falling steadily and both bowled with great accuracy, especially considering how wet the ball was, but Soulbury crept home with three overs and four wickets to spare. On second thoughts another 20 runs might have been enough.

An excellent game played in a great spirit. Many thanks to Soulbury for hosting us.

Cublington Cricket Club

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