Prior to the match I had received a number of phone calls from MED advising me of the demise of other Willows captains who had had the misfortune to lead their teams to defeat. Obviously I didn’t want to be part of this select group, so it was with a great degree of relief when I saw included in the selection of the final eleven to play this fixture, were such names of M Owens, D Grocott, A Nuttall, D Cusack. As we all know, being a “name” doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, but that wasn’t to be the case with this fixture. While the bowling line up was potentially impressive, I did however have the odd reservation or two about our batting line up, with it being full of stroke makers, rather than hard grafters. Nevertheless I chose to bat with my faith being rewarded with the Willows scoring 184 for 9 at the end of 50 overs.

Robbie Miller and Wade Burrell got us off to an adequate start, scoring 29 for the first wicket. We had the odd hiccup or two but thanks in the main to Darin Cusack’s patient 41, Wade Burrell’s 32 and some lusty hitting at the end from Colin Hight, who scored 24, we were able to get through to 184. With the powerful Michael Owens still generating good pace and bounce, and the parsimonious Dave Grocott opening the bowling, Shirley Boys’ struggled to get the run chase underway. Dave Grocott’s six overs conceded just four runs for one wicket and Michael’s four overs, similarly going for four runs.

Colin Hight’s impeccable line and length saw him pickup 2 for 16 from 8 overs and Andy Nuttall still proved that he could give the ball a little bit of a tweak with 4 for 13 from 8 overs. One of those wickets was an excellent leg side stumping from stand-in ‘keeper, Andrew Ellis. All this meant that the Shirley Boys’ batsmen never got going and were all out for 74.

This was the second year that the Shirley Boys’ side has played the Willows, and like last season the application of their players never wavered from go to woe. With a good number of team members still available for next year, the now annual fixture should be a lot closer in 2002/03.