Avery Hill Park, Greenwich, Sunday 15 September 2024.

St Anne’s Allstars 208-7 (35 overs: Vijay Mishra 50* ret; Anand Pichaimaini 50* ret, Mathan Olaganathan 40, James Samdham 3-20) beat Plastics 201-7 (35 overs: Charlie Bradbury 51* ret, Roger Golding 50* ret, Mathan Olaganathan 2-21, Gren Thompson 2-27) by 7 runs.

Allstars Debuts: Anand Pichaimaini, Uffan Salimi, Vijay Mishra, Zain Javed.

Report and photos by Maxie Allen

An enthralling match. A narrow win. Nice weather. A pleasant venue. And a friendly oppo.

Altogether, what they call in the trade ‘a good day out’. But the real success was getting a full side on the field in the first place.

Recruitment had not been straightforward. This fixture took us to Avery Hill Park in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. And for our visit to the home of time, we had to show some latitude on team selection.

In truth, I was a rusty match manager. This was the first Allstars fixture I’d overseen for three years, and as luck would have it, Spond revealed a grand total of six players had made themselves available.

Hence I began the usual process of trying to force people to play a cricket match. “Hello, you barely know who I am, but would you like to traipse to the arse-end of south-east London to chase leather for me all day?”

Every tactic from subtle persuasion to blackmail and outright coercion failed to yield dividends.  In desperation I turned to the Fixture List, our sport’s version of Grindr – providing casual hook-ups for the cricketing desperate.

For those unfamiliar, the Fixture List website links up clubs looking for extra players with players looking for a game. It supplies both swings and roundabouts. Yes, it can solve a problem – but you also have to kiss a lot of frogs: inquiries which go nowhere, and respondents who are time wasters.

Using the Fixture List is not unlike trying to sell a baby buggy on Facebook Marketplace.

‘Hi, is your buggy still for sale?’

‘Yes. Would you like it?’

And you never hear from them again.

So after placing a listing on the site, and as replies began to trickle in, I played a mix of hardball and conviviality: showing appreciation for their interest but also determining whether they were serious and organised and reliable.

I asked questions. I assessed. I filtered. Those who passed my ‘tests’ were admitted to the holy sanctum of the WhatsApp group. Slowly but surely, I acquired a viable squad.

In fact, by Saturday night I had twelve players. But at 9pm I sustained a double-loss. One player, a regular Allstar, broke the discouraging news he was in Accident and Emergency. A second – one of five ‘guests’ from the Fixture List – messaged me to say he had a ‘family emergency’, words which for more than a century have been cricket code for ‘can’t be bothered’.

With fifteen hours to go, the squadometer now read 10, although the sub-XI total was partly mitigated by (a) the likely contribution of Felix’s son (my nephew Ned), and (b) Vivek could hang around for a while, after dropping off the kit, before returning to Shoreham to look after his dog.

All this generated the exact variety of exciting jeopardy which firmly distinguishes the experience of a village cricket captain from the likes of, say, Ollie Pope. He may have struggled for runs in his first two outings as England stand-in captain, but he didn’t arrive at Lord’s worrying whether four blokes he’d found on the internet would actually show up – or a fielding strategy based on an eight-year-old and a guy who had to leave early to walk the dog.

Against this backdrop, matchday dawned, and we sashayed our merry way to Avery Hill – which itself introduced another, geographical, layer of uncertainty. We’d never hired or even seen the venue before. As with four of our squad, it was an internet blind date – booked simply on the basis of being cheap (£109) and crucially, available.

This could easily have gone terribly wrong, but in truth, we lucked out. Upon arrival it was quickly and universally agreed that Avery Hill was A Nice Ground. 

OK, the actual pitch was a bit meh. But there was a pleasing vista, undulating across felicitously apportioned greensward to the glass-domed Winter Gardens botanical house. There was a new-looking cafe and playground. The lavatories boasted generous provision of real loo rolls. And for a council park ground, there was a refreshing absence of motorbikes, nitrous oxide canisters, and the emergency services.

But pleasant as it was, not everyone found the venue easy to locate. En route, two Fixture Listers rang me to say they’d got lost. This set me the interesting challenge of trying to direct people I’ve never met, to a place I’d never been to. 

Meanwhile, as our squad members trickled in, Plastics’ captain – a smooth operator by the name of Roger Golding – summoned me for the toss, which I won. Electing to make first use of the pitch, I considered my strategic options for the batting order. 

On this subject, there are competing schools of thought. Some argue for steady accumulation. Others advocate bold strokeplay from the get-go. In the end I plumped for a third option: a top order comprised of the players who had actually turned up. Therefore, people batted in the sequence in which they arrived.

As play got underway, my thoughts turned to the consideration that 37% of the team were completely unknown quantities. What would happen? They might be brilliant players, terrible players, or – for all I knew – raging sociopaths on day-release from Wormwood Scrubs.

In the event, it couldn’t have worked out any better. All four proved to be really nice chaps, who totally ‘got’ what the Allstars are about. They were also – to a man – very decent cricketers, but not *too* good, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t cheating to have them.

But I did not know this when I sent two of them out to open the batting. And now another issue emerged: I could not for the life of me remember anyone’s names.

Remember, I’d not played for three years. Aside from the Fixture Listers, there were also two regulars I’d never met before – Mathan and John – and I hadn’t seen Samer for a long time either. Pretty much the only player I was entirely confident about was Felix – who had the advantage of being my brother.

This amounted to a problem in making sense of the opening partnership between two of our brand-new guests, whose identities were a total mystery to me. It hardly helped they were the same height, both wore helmets, and were identically dressed. All I can tell you is there were good shots from Whatshisname and some confident strokeplay from The Other Fella.

The ball frequently reached the boundary. A few catching chances were offered but not accepted. Things went well. A bit too well, really. We reached 95-0 after 13 overs. So I decided to retire each of the openers when they reached 50. 

[Editor’s note: Vijay Mishra struck seven 4s and two 6s for his fine unbeaten half-century, which he reached in 42 balls. At the other end, Anand Pichaimani made nine 4s and one 6, in his equally fine 37-ball fifty.]

These retirements were to have significant implications later in the match. At the time, they were purely acts of unilateral disarmament, as I’d not pre-agreed a retirement policy with the oppo. My intention was to open up the game, and it worked. With new batsmen at the crease, the tone changed. The bowlers had fresh purpose, runs grew harder to come by, and wickets began to fall. 

Vivek Seth and newbie Uffan Salimi were the pair who replaced the openers, but neither lasted as long as they may have wished. Both were caught in the ring off leading edges. Having previously dropped everything, Plastics now began to catch everything, and all our wickets were to fall by this mode of dismissal.

That first brace of catches brought batsmen five and six to the crease – Mathan Olaganathan, and Samer Hafiz – and also a long phase of equality between bat and ball. The bowling was tidy and the pitch (which had the character of grumpy plasticine) became uncooperative. Sweet timing proved elusive, but both Samer and particularly Mathan took the scoring opportunities when offered.

Their partnership had realised 63 runs when Samer chipped another catch to the ring. However, it also used up 11 overs, and this relatively slow progress constrained us from batting Plastics out of sight. We continued in this vein for the remaining nine overs of our innings, scoring enough runs to make progress, but too few to secure the game. Felix had a poke about, and after Mathan’s dismissal for 40, John Kingston batted busily enough – with support from debutant Zain Javed and Gren Thompson – to get us to a total of 208.

At the time, I thought this was probably enough to win – and I was right, but only just. It soon became clear that Plastics’ batting was their stronger suit. Our bowlers generally bowled faster than theirs, but the extra pace made timing easier and the boundary seem shorter.

Such was the case from the very start of the innings. My initial bowling choices were determined partly by the imperative of canine exercise. One end was allocated to Vivek, so he could have a couple of overs before heading back to West Sussex for walkies.

At the other, Gren glided in with his customary speed and grace, rather like the Lloyds black horse, except with longer legs. He dispatched some excellent stuff, but any lapses in length were seized upon by Plastics’ captain Roger Golding, who looked rather tasty.

So did his partner Peter Bishop, until he attempted to whip Gren off his legs. The shot was a touch too ambitious, especially to such a lavishly swinging delivery. Its parabola resembled the type of banana of which EU officials would take a very dim view. The subsequent sound of ball on wood derived from Mr Bishop’s forlorn middle stump.

His successor, Dom Gillan, struck some meaty blows before falling victim to a ripper from Uffan Salimi. Although at that stage I was still unsure of his name, I had no doubts about the attractive quality of his off-spin, which supplied from the pavilion end (by pavilion, I mean kit bags strewn about). 

Meanwhile, Mathan had replaced Gren and consolidated his reputation as one of those characters who’s just good at everything. He bowled briskly and accurately, and attacked the stumps with single-minded determination. His reward came with the wicket of Matthew Webb, whose innings was chiefly notable for a remarkably low-buttocked stance less associated with cricket than the moment in a game of Twister where you have to keep your foot on purple while reaching for green.

64-3 became 79-4 when Zain’s leg-spin induced a top edge from Plastics’ Robert Bishop, snaffled by wicketkeeper Anand. While the wickets fell, Roger Golding stood firm, and played what was probably the innings of the match. This was ‘proper’ batting. Above all, he was ruthless with anything overpitched and reeled off a series of crisp front-foot strokes, which earned him seven fours, including a regal off-drive (off Gren) of unimprovable peachiness. 

So you can imagine our relief when Roger retired himself upon reaching 50, with Plastics’ score on around 100. On his part, this was a very magnanimous decision. He and I had no pre-agreement on retirements. He didn’t have to do it and only did it because we had done it. I tried to call Roger back, but he insisted, and the die was cast.

Shortly afterwards, Vijay trapped James Sandham leg before, and with Plastics now 109-5, I thought the match was won. It wasn’t to prove quite so simple. Plastics batted deep, and resourcefully. 

Now at the crease was Murtaza Rizvi, who at first seemed hesitant but settled into a watchful innings in which bad balls were punished. Alongside him was Charlie Bradbury. He boasted an extremely good eye and forearms which wouldn’t look out of place if served for Christmas dinner.

Overall, Charlie was the kind of batsman I hate in village cricket, because he had that uncanny knack of hitting the ball exactly where the fielders weren’t and in fact never expected to be.  He crunched it behind square. He dinked it over third man. He walloped it betwixt mid-wicket and long-on. 

Game on. 

Adding to my captaincy challenge were numerous fielding constraints. By this point Vivek had left. Instead we had Ned, Felix’s son, promoted from the Allstars Under-Nines squad. He applied himself extremely well. But for an eight-year-old in a full-scale adult cricket match, there are limitations. For one thing – and understandably – he wanted to field quite close to his dad. For long periods we had two mid-ons, three yards apart.

About half-way through the innings, Ned also had to depart, for a swimming lesson. This reduced us to ten players, and eight outfielders. In the circs it seemed churlish to ask the oppo for a spare, so we were left with more and bigger gaps in the field.

The difficulties were exacerbated by a distinctly two-tier hierarchy of fielding effectiveness. The four Fixture Listers – Zain, Uffan, Vijay, and Anand – plus Mathan and Gren, were youthful, lithe and quick. The rest of us were either old, injured, unfit, had a bad back, or in my case, all four. 

When the ball was struck in our direction, the pursuit resembled someone walking through treacle while carrying heavy suitcases. And even after we finally apprehended the ball, the batsmen were easily able to run another two in the time we took to bend down and pick it up.

The fitter, faster fielders posed their own problem, because I still could not recall their names, at least not with confidence, and I kept mixing them up.

That had been awkward enough when we were batting and I could address individuals, face to face. It was all the trickier in the field, when there were loads of them, mostly far away, and I was required to attract the correct person’s attention in order to change their position.

“You over there, could you get to square leg? No not you. I mean…er…you“.

And so on.

Somehow, we just about kept a lid on things, largely due to some very decent bowling. We seemed to have a conveyor belt of proper bowlers, each one providing pace, accuracy, and good economy against accomplished batsmen. Gren finished with 2-27 from his seven overs. Mathan took 2-21 from his six. Vijay returned an equally impressive 1-28 from seven.

As a consequence, we held Plastics at bay, but only by a small degree. For the final 20 overs of their innings they were always about 15-20 runs behind the equation. This never seemed to change, although as the finish approached, the margins grew tighter.

With the score on 178, Mathan finally removed the obdurate Murtaza, ending a sixth-wicket stand of 69. Charlie continued to bash away. But crucially, he then reached his fifty – having struck six fours, and a six – and Roger retired him.

Like before, this was a very magnanimous act, as there’d been no official arrangement. Arguably it cost Plastics the match. On the other hand, if I’d not made the original decision to retire Vijay and Anand, they’d likely have batted Plastics out of the game before any real contest developed.

Tom King and Ian Whitfield were the new batsmen charged with getting Plastics over the line. The atmosphere grew tense. The end-of-over scores weren’t recorded, but they required roughly 20 from the last two, and 14 from the final over.

This meant they needed boundaries. But they didn’t get them. Gren and Mathan calmly closed things out, and we won by seven runs. 

This completed an almost perfect Allstars match. Everyone got to bat and bowl. Everyone either scored runs or took wickets. And we won, but only narrowly and after a close contest played in a positive and friendly spirit by two sides who got on very well.

Indeed, in the pub afterwards, the Plastics proved excellent chaps and very good company. But I couldn’t remember their names either.

Marble Hill Park, Twickenham, Saturday 31 August 2024.

Crossbats 345-2 (40 overs: Dan Masini 103 ret, A Suri 94) beat St Anne’s Allstars 137-8 (40 overs: Matt Biss 60*) by 208 runs.

Mill Hill School, Sunday 11 August 2024.

St Anne’s Allstars 250 (52.5 overs: Mathan Olaganathan 63, Matt Biss 33, Imran Razaq 33, Tom Taylor 5-54) beat Mighty Wanderers 172 all out (42.4 overs: Pansindu Kumarasena 3-8) by 78 runs to retain the James Abrahams Trophy.

Allstars Debuts: Bassem Khan, Imran Razaq, Pansindu Kumarasena, Sajid Mahmood, Tahir Younis.

Report by Sheahan Arnott – Photos by Sheahan Arnott and Nathaniel Hill

Mill Hill School is quite the ground to get to. Set inside a gated community on the grounds of an old stately home located sufficiently outside London to safeguard the attendees from “dangers both physical and moral awaiting youth while passing through the streets of a large, crowded and corrupt city” as John Pye-Smith wrote in 1807.

 Well it’s not outside London these days – albeit about half-an-hour further out of London than where Dick Whittington supposedly heard the Bow Bells tell him he’d be Lord Mayor one day – but it definitely feels like a place you’d find in a PG Wodehouse novel more so than our fixture list. 

And with branded deckchairs outside the historic pavilion (as the Inspector Morse episode Deceived in Flight), it wouldn’t have been hard to imagine Stiffy Byng reclined in one telling Stinker Pinker that she thought he’d got a rough decision from the umpire had I not been guiding everyone to the ground like a human lighthouse. 

Getting a team together during the week had been laborious, but we had a full complement by the time we tossed and had loaned Sai to our opposition to square us up at 10 v 10. Wanderers skipper James Knight won the toss and sent us in. I was pretty happy that we’d get first use of an outstanding looking wicket, a fast outfield and leave them to swelter in the blazing English sun for a few hours. 

We’d agreed to a much longer format than we’d usually play – 100 overs with lunch and tea breaks, and a few of us reckoned it had been about 20 years since we’d played a game that started before midday, but Matt Biss and Imran Razaq strode to the crease just before 11am and the game began. 

Regular Allstars will know that making it to the end of the first over without losing a wicket is a fantastic achievement, so when Matt and Imran made it to drinks with their partnership unbroken, we were already in unfamiliar territory. 

Mighty Wanderers bowled well with Imran taking full toll on anything loose, and riding his luck with three dropped catches. At the other end, Matt was his usual indefatigable self, blunting the best attack we’ve played against in a long while. 

Imran fell three balls after drinks, bringing the WG Grace-esque figure of Tahir Younis to the crease on debut. He wasted no time showing he’s a class bat, but lost his stumps to Nick Charlton for 14, before Sajid Mahmood did the same to Tom Taylor an over later. Bassem Khan became Nick’s third victim – and our third wicket in as many overs – to leave us at 70/4 and in real danger of throwing away an excellent start. 

Mathan Olaganathan refused to be overawed by the situation, flicking his second ball for 4 off his toes and somewhat calming my captain’s nerves. Matt and Mathan dug in against some excellent bowling, with Mathan showing a full range of glorious shots at one end while Matt negotiated challenging bowling at the other. 

Mathan brought up his half century off 48 balls, and after some very angry calls with Domino’s employees, we broke for lunch at 165/4 in a much stronger position than we’d looked 20 overs earlier.

We’d faced 40 overs, and I told the not out batters to hold out the next four overs and we could start to accelerate our scoring and push towards an imposing total. Mathan, however, didn’t take this on board and was bowled first ball after lunch for a classy 63 in a critical partnership of 95. Harshad Keskar picked up where Mathan left off, and added 40 or so in rapid time before Matt’s vigil came to an end.

I don’t think my writing can do justice to just how well Matt batted. He gave a solitary chance in his first 120 balls – a catch to cover that was called a no-ball – before finally getting out attempting to lift the scoring rate. It was a hot, long day at the crease against a very good bowling attack, and he was more than equal to the task. 

In the end, the scorebook says he made 33, but they were worth a lot more than that given leadership and experience at the crease helped keep our more aggressive batters’ heads in the game. I’m not sure if anyone else in club history has faced as many balls in an innings, and I’m not sure I’ve played with anyone else who could. 

Nathaniel Hill came and went first ball, and – in a role reversal of last season’s game – I came to the crease on a hat trick. With the hat trick ball negotiated, it was time to add some mayo to our score, and consecutive boundaries did just that. Harshad and I took full toll on a tired attack, before Pansindu Kumarasena replaced Harshad and kept the rate up.

A flat six over long-on brought up our 250, and as the fielders went to look for the ball in the undergrowth, I called out to their captain and said we’d declare having batted 53.4 overs. He told me they’d found the ball, and I asked the bowler whether he’d taken 4 or 5 wickets. He told me four, so we “undeclared” to give him two balls to see if he could take his fifth wicket. He only needed one as I hit a catch to long on and wrapped up the innings.

Getting to 250 from 70/4 was an outstanding effort from (just about) everyone who batted, and I knew we had more than enough runs to win if we took early wickets, but with 47 overs remaining in the day would we have enough time…?

I told our bowlers that attacking the stumps would be key to us winning, and though Pansindu and Mathan didn’t bowl as though this applied to them, we did restrict scoring early. Pansindu got the first breakthrough, bowling Tim Maddison for 4 with a brutal ball that pitched on leg stump and hit middle (bowl at the stumps boys!).

Harshad got wickets two and three, and at 37/3 in the 15th over, we were looking good. Tom Taylor came to the crease and batted like he had somewhere else to be – because he did. A la Joe Root, he attempted to ramp the first ball he faced and pushed the scoring rate up and up. 

Bassem snuck a ball through Rigby’s defence on 37 to take his first ever wicket, and Tahir went through Taylor on 40 to give him his first wicket for the club. A calamitous call nearly led to James Knight getting run out for a diamond duck. James certainly thought he was out when he threw his bat and remonstrated with his partner, but the umpire disagreed. With David Heafield looking untroubled at the other end, this was the partnership we needed to break to give ourselves a chance to win the game. 

Not content with spending 40-something overs with his pads on, Matt volunteered to keep in lieu of there being any alternative. He snaffled his first catch off Harshad, but his second was even better – a sharp reflex catch off Irman to dismiss Knight that any keeper would be proud of. 

We took our last drinks break at 6.35 (sorry, yes I know I said I’d be home early but we’re still going) and I brought Pansindu back on to bowl. Almost immediately, he bowled Tjasink leaving us two wickets from victory. Two wickets became one wicket, as Heafield slapped Pansindu to midwicket and Sajid took a tremendous, instinctive one-handed catch. 

Both remaining batters were content to play for the draw, and as the overs counted down and down, I knew we had one last roll of the dice – Imran’s fizzing spinners from one end and Tahir’s loopy off-breaks from the other. But we never got to that last roll, as I sent an in-swinger through Shashank and knocked over his leg stump. 

Had we not had last year’s last over thriller, taking the winning wicket with 25 balls remaining might be seen as a close result, but after 8+ hours on the cricket field, we were all absolutely stuffed and ready to go home. 

And I am pleased to report the James Abrahams Trophy is back on my desk ready to spend the next 12 months where it spent the last.

Chiswick House & Gardens, Sunday 4 August 2024.

Gradcasts 150-7 (28.5 overs: Imran C 48*, Dave Haselhurst 43, Mathan Olaganathan 3-19, Sanjay Dindyal 2-5, Gren Thompson 2-19) beat St Anne’s Allstars 149-9 (30 overs: Gren Thompson 43, Harshad Keskar 42, Ed Duncan Smith 3-26) by 2 wickets.

Allstars Debut: Mathan Olaganathan

Report by Garreth Duncan – Photos by Jimmy Scott, Phani Sainath and Garreth Duncan – Video by Phani Sainath

Our series with Gradcasts so far couldn’t be a bigger contrast. Our first three games so far read: record Allstars victory; narrow Gradcasts victory; another record victory for us. After such a sequence, it somehow seemed like it could be their turn again today – but in a fabulous game of cricket, we gave it everything before they finally sneaked over the line with just seven balls to spare.

Chiswick House is one of the most stunning venues we’ve played at – complete with impressive electronic scoreboard – and it was a delight to make a return after over a decade away. I won the toss and decided to bat – but It quickly became apparent the pitch was uneven, some balls rearing up and others shooting through. But that didn’t stop us getting off to an excellent start, as debutant Mathan Olaganathan, who’d responded to our latest call-out for players on The Fixture List, and Harshad Keskar, making a welcome return to Allstars cricket after injury, began positively. On a fast outfield, the boundary count mounted up quickly, as they put on a run-a-ball opening stand of 31.

Left-armer Adam Dunkley broke the stand by bowling Mathan, but Harshad continued to hit boundaries while giving the opposition field an occasional tempter, and he was well supported by John Kingston as they put together a well constructed half-century stand for the second wicket. Gradcasts secretary Gavin Collins slowed the rate with an accurate spell, and their debutant Imran also kept it tight from the other end. But John’s dismissal brought a clatter of wickets as Ed Duncan Smith (no relation to the MP – or to myself?) was settling into a good spell. First, Harshad was caught, and then Phani Sainath and Kiran Chitajallu quickly followed. With just ten overs of the alotted 30 remaining, we were 87-5 and still had work to do to set a competitive total.

Gren Thompson, who’s been in excellent form for us this season, and Sanjay Dindyal, making a welcome first Allstars appearance of the season, first repaired the damage and then hit the accelerator. Sanj was just starting to get motoring when he was brilliantly caught at gully. Nathaniel Hill played a nice shot before losing his stumps, and then Jimmy Scott took a nasty blow to the forehead off a bouncer and was forced to retire. Iain Wilson was unlucky to be run out at the non-striker’s end as the bowler got a fingertip deflection onto the stumps – but Gren was in imperious touch by then, and I helped him add a quick 18 for the last wicket before he was bowled by the final delivery. Our final total of 149 looked just about defendable.

With the pitch still playing tricks, bowling at the stumps seemed the best way. Buoyed up by his batting, Gren gave us the perfect start as he bowled Mark Haselhurst in the first over without a run on the board, and soon followed up with another as he knocked Duncan Smith’s stumps over with a lovely inswinger. Mathan was also getting into a great rhythm at the other end, and in an excellent first spell for the Allstars, he bowled both Olly Coulson and Dave Lamb to leave Gradcasts in peril at 25-4.

We knew Gradcasts would have some quality somewhere, and by then left-hander Dave Haselhurst was into his stride, hitting powerfully through cover and straight. Sanj, despite sustaining a knee injury the previous day, was working up a really hostile spell, and he took the next wicket as Rich Murfitt played on to make it 46-5. Imran had looked class with the ball and in the field, and I didn’t need my favourite singer to tell me – I knew he was trouble when he walked in. He quickly settled at the wicket, and with Haselhurst still finding the boundary, the run rate began to mount – but Sanj just would not give in, and he dismissed Haselhurst with a brute of a bouncer which he skied to Harshad behind the stumps. Gradcasts were 86-6, and the game was still wide open.

Skipper Collins looked a good batsman too, and with Gren’s final burst unable to break the stand, the target ticked down. Harshad took his pads off to have a bowl, with Jimmy bravely taking the gloves having recovered from his injury. But still we couldn’t find a way through, and Imran and Collins continued to take Gradcasts towards victory. With just two required, Mathan completed an excellent debut with one last great effort as he pinned Collins LBW in his final over. After the amazing finish against Railway Taverners last year, we never believe a game is lost until the final run is scored – but Geri (not very Spicely) Morris took Gradcasts over the line as he steered the next ball down to third man.

But this was a superb effort by the Allstars and an excellent game of cricket, of which we can be very proud of our efforts, and everyone was in excellent spirits at the end. The Gradcasts are a great bunch, and with our series now tied at 2-2, we’ll look forward to seeing them again next season to see who can edge ahead once again. We have the highlight of our Family Day at Barn Elms to come on 18 August – but first, we’re back in North London as we contest the James Abrahams Trophy against Mighty Wanderers on Sunday.