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Summary

Win some, lose some. Do you want the good news or the bad news?

The good news? The Breadman did the business on Saturday.

The bad news? Just about all of Sunday's game. A strong Denham side simply misfired on all cylinders.

Saturday 13th: Denham v Belsize Hill VCC

Hordes of Denham cricketers (well 14 of them) crawled out of the woodwork and arrived at the clubhouse demanding a game. Messrs. Payne and Dickson ended up helping the 9-strong visitors make up an XI.

We batted first and Andy Leach (60+) got us off to an excellent start. We then crumbled from around 120/2 to 160 for 7 before Dave Maynard, who had held himself back to number nine, was a nasty surprise for the visitors, scoring an extremely fast unbeaten 65 - some of it along with young Sam Rogers (dropped when on 0 by a very familiar face to the Denham First XI). This partnership helped bring us up to 235/8.

The visiting XI were never really in the hunt once Faisal got in among them. Stuart Payne scored the 20 runs that politeness demands, before being one of Faisal's victims.

It was however left to young Sam Rogers (alias The Breadman) to come on and clean up the Belsize Hill tail. He had the excellent figures of 3/19 as the visitors were all out for 150. One of his victims was a military sort of chap called 'Dicko', who would never live it down if his true identity were to be revealed.

Sunday 14th: Denham v Iver Heath

We had a very strong batting lineup, but no one stayed around to graft out a decent innings. The pitch was not at its most reliable, while very accurate short-of-a-length bowling from the visitors meant that risk-taking was usually punished. It was left to Harish Bhatt (30) to produce some fireworks at the end. Now, Harish, what was that you shouted when you had hit the ball high into the air and the fielder was waiting underneath it? Someone said "Top 'it", meaning a splendid blow, others said you simply sneezed. Whatever it was, your innings helped the team reach 160.

We had a strong bowling lineup too: A. Drain, B. Drain, C. Drain etc. (with the honourable exception of James Nicholas). It's best to draw a veil over the Iver Heath innings. We started arguing with and blaming each other. The Iver Heath batsmen took good advantage of it and passed our total with 4 or 5 overs (and 4 or 5 wickets) to spare.