Never has so much been expected of so few by so many. I thought Winston Churchill said this, but no, it has The Willows Match Manager who greeted me at The Willows entrance and hastily took me off to the “Long Room” for a chat on how The Willowers had lost their last three games in a row. It was laid down in strong terms that defeat this day was not to be possible, or “heads would roll”.

With this message clearly relayed back to the team, we then proceeded to lose the toss, and were sent in to bat.

Paul McEwan had his young team well fired up to inflict pain and humiliation upon us. After the first seven overs, with only 6 runs on the board, MED was seen heading away to get the sack cloth and ashes. O ye of little faith.

As only great sides do, the fight back started. It was ably led by Byron Newton, who played a wide array of shots to finish with 75. He gained excellent support from Matt Fielding, Adrian McFedries, Graeme Inglis and Anup Nathu, as The Willows scored 247/7 in their allotted 50 overs

The Combined side certainly never gave it away in the field and earned applause for the way they chased everything, including Captain Paul McEwan’s one over that cost 13. C van Beek will 2/31 and T Ponder 2/39 were the pick of the bowlers.

We then had the reappearance of The Willows Match Manager who sensed that this could be a competitive total and wanted to get a piece of the action with his trusty camera.

Showing their competitive nature, all of The Willows bowlers then proceeded to produce their best effort of the season. However, the Combined side also displayed a fighting nature, but in the end they ran out of time, reaching 173/8 with Danny Dowds batting through the innings to be 70 not out at the end of 50 overs, and Paul McEwan hitting 39.