One thing which the Festival highlighted was that lots of Allstars really like the “Fifteen15Fifteen15” format (thanks to Chadders for the name), involving two innings per side, each of 15 overs, in which the batting order is reversed for the second innings. The bowling restrictions usually involve most people having a bowl – I believe that at the Festival this year almost everyone bowled at least 2 overs. (The rule in place was maximum of 5 overs per bowler over the whole game, minimum of 7 bowlers to be used.)
For me and others, the format real contributed to the atmosphere and the enjoyability of the day. I for one would like to play more such games.
So I am starting a campaign today to encourage the playing of more games in this format, not just “fun” games at the annual-ish Festival, but regular season games too. After all, aren’t all our games supposed to be fun?
If you agree, and would like to see the Allstars play more Fifteen15Fifteen15 games, please say so in the comments box below.

Player of the Day was Venay, for his allround performance with bat ball and in the field. Venay was particularly happy to catch James A in the first innings and then bowl him in the second innings, after which he announced that he had forgiven James for a rather unfortunate umpiring decision in Ibiza.

Today’s 2010 Allstars Festival was a huge success, enjoyed by all. We played a two x 15 over innings per side game, with the batting order reversed in the second innings, which meant that everyone got to participate. In the end, “Young Boys of Barnes” captained by Gren, beat Devers’ eponymous team by 24 runs. The picture shows Maxie presenting the match ball to the victorious captain — with defeated captain Devers in the background.

For me, the highlight of the game against English Heritage (which Maxie has already blogged about below) was the point at which the Allstars run rate was a breezy 54 runs per over, which put us on target for a projected first innings total of 1,890.
Sadly the home team tightened up their bowling considerably and managed to restrict us to 152. Still, it was nice while it lasted.

Lost by the annoying margin of 1 wicket. They crept over the line with eight balls to spare. 152-7 played 155-9.

Stephen Harty top scored for us on debut with 65, with support from James Morgan’s 32.

Stephen also took 4 wickets, Tony Grant snaffled a brace, and there were one each for Morgsy and KP.

A very close, exciting match – just a shame the final wicket eluded us.