The weather gods smiled on us and apart from the occasional nor’west blast our annual fixture took place. The usual coin toss followed with The Willows heading into bat with the opening pair of Tim McConnell and Sam McGuire adding 89 for the first wicket against a steady attack on a wicket that was “doing a bit”! Momentum headed our way and an excellent partnership of 157 between Adam Hastilow and Will Macfarlane took The Willows to a challenging total of 263. College used eight bowlers, mainly of the seam variety, who bowled with pace and accuracy.

The College reply saw them losing two quick wickets before they produced two good partnerships, where they accumulated runs at a good pace and The Willows total loomed into consideration. Sam Abbot, Ben Dickie and Nick Lidstone all struck the ball well with Ben Dickie striking five 6’s in his excellent innings of 97. Keeper turned bowler Michael Newton-Vesty bowled an extremely tidy spell claiming six College wickets for a miserly 46 runs. The evergreen Stan Wooliscroft chimed in with two wickets and College found themselves 34 runs short. A win to The Willows on a day where nearly 500 runs were scored and the large contingent of spectators were well entertained.

It was unfortunate that two batsmen from opposing sides, Hastilow (93) and Dickie (97), were unlucky to miss a century. Both batsmen timed the ball well and peppered the boundary (and hedge) with regularity.