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The two teams arrived at Wallsend Sports Centre on the hottest match day of the year to find that the groundsman had not prepared a wicket, and furthermore had watered the entire square during the afternoon. This meant that the square was sodden, and in places treacherous.
The least wet strip was selected for the game, though it had clearly been used up to a week earlier and remained uncut with divots missing around the creases. There were no visible line markings.
The all-important toss was won by Coquet and CCC were duly inserted into bat.
Scoring runs at Wallsend against Coquet's slow attack is tricky in normal circumstances, but on a wet overgown pitch it was impossible to get going. Two batsmen played on, Nick was brilliantly caught by the outstanding Ward, Ian was needlessly run out and others were well caught playing desperate attacking strokes. Off 16 overs CCC managed 95-9, a score that would have been below par off 14 overs. Only Greg looked at all fluent, posting 28 before getting bored with running and attempting an inadvisable slog to leg.
Coquet were never in any trouble. the pitch was drying out and playing more evenly by the time they came to bat, and they achieved 96-4 with 10 balls left.
It was very disappointing to come unstuck against the bottom-placed side having been in good form recently, however, for the second season running CCC were undone by the idiosyncracies of cricket at Wallsend.
Team: Nick, Tom F, Simon E, Greg, Mudassar, Peter, Ian, John, Derek, Guy, Cliff
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