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Result - Stone in Oxney

Sun Sep 17th Grannies win by 2 - or 3 runs!

Match report

This (rain-reduced, 30-over) game could have ended in such rancour.... The score-board said Stone needed 187. They got 182 - or 183, depending which score-book you looked at. On close examination of both - one maintained by my lately deceased mother's long-time - and easily distracted - companion, the other by her husband, who basically looks over her shoulder - the totals recorded for our innings were respectively 184 and 185. A couple more runs for Stone and the recriminations would have been barely imaginable and a public enquiry all but inevitable...
Happily though they didn't and the history-books will show: a win for the Grannies - by at least 2 runs...
Credit for this second win in successive years, goes to batters, bowlers and fielders alike. On the batting side, our openers, Roger Tidyman (Sussex and England....over 70s) and Larry Brennan (Grannies, IZ and the Army) reached 24 and 40 respectively, at a measured pace, with flowing strokes to the fore, and it was surprising when each perished. They were followed by Eddie Brennan (Grannies, IZ, OAs and Egerton) and James Snowden (full pedigree unknown), who both looked comfortable until getting out in the teens, and, most eye-catchingly, by Mo Ahmad (who must have played for Pakistan Under-10s before his parents brought him here at that age), who in no time scored a brutal but aesthetically ravishing 70*. Special mention must be made too of Pari Job, who came out of 5 or 6 years' retirement, and from distant Buckinghamshire, to meet a shortage of players, and who was run out when going strong...for as good a 0 as you will see.
In the field our bowlers would probably admit they over-achieved. Actually they probably wouldn't - and why should they? Will Dunn and Tom Bell very likely always saw themselves as opening bowlers and they acquitted themselves admirably. Will, in two spells - the second when Stone were progressing rather rapidly - took 2 for 55 off 7, while TB kept it tight taking 1 for 25 off 6. They were followed most notably by Anthony Dunn, who was not flattered by figures of 6-0-22-1, the 1 a good return catch (to go with another off his brother), and the self-same Mo (who, let it be recorded, is a keeper, but one who has not got near the gloves in my games...), who met the final onslaught on the target, first, with medium pace, then with big-turning offies, finishing with 8-0-44-1. Between them Stone were seen off - but only just!
All of that praise having been lavished on the bowlers, the show was actually completely stolen by Charlie (the 10-year-old son of Eddie) Brennan, who fielded mostly fine leg to fine leg (at his father's suggestion) and who hurled himself about all afternoon, saving many more runs than we won by, and who was cruelly denied a truly blinding catch at square leg, when it was called a no ball - AND who would probably have run through Stone, had his captain had the nous to put him on...!
Thanks as ever to Stone, for defying the weather to get the game on, and providing an excellent wicket for what turned out to be a pulsating game, and, last but far from least, for the usual magnificent tea.
Roll on '24, and, I dare to believe, a hat-trick of wins.

Match info

Also playing Charlie Brennan and Roger Tidyman

Location
Stone in Oxney,
nr. Tenterden,
TN30 7JL