On a good wicket, Bob Masefield won the toss for the Crays and elected to bat.

After some good early bowling, particularly from Willie Fairbairn (Christ’s College) and Stephen Flanagan (St. Bede’s College), John Masefield, Bob’s brother, began to show his liking for the batting conditions and endeavoured to repeat last year’s performance of scoring 100. As a result of John’s fine batting the Crays were in a good position at the luncheon interval.

Possibly the key part of the match was in the morning session when, with his first touch of the ball on “The Willows” ground Geoff Smith, in attempting a catch, had his knee almost decapitated. Our master batsman was, from that point onwards, destined to treatment in the Pavilion aided by medical liquid in the form of neat brandy.

After lunch Colin Hight concluded the Crays’ innings with a typically straight and nagging delivery which left the Willows 191 to win. A feature of the Crays’ innings was the high standard of wicket­ keeping by Paul Rutledge who effected a wonderful leg side stumping, then took a magnificent diving catch to his left off an inside edge.

Peter Joyce started the Willows’ chase explosively but after his departure wickets began to fall steadily. A fine knock of 44 by Derek Burrell threatened to revive the Willows’ cause, but his efforts were in vain – the Willows suffered their third loss of the 1996-97 season.

The Crays deservedly won the match through their batting and bowling and a very enjoyable day was had by all, even though proceedings were interrupted on occasions by showery weather.