The Gents’ thirteenth season looks like being a classic. A brave and resilient rearguard action by Wandham earned them a draw that had seemed most unlikely when Williams drove to Heapo eighteen overs before, at which point the hosts were crumbling at 29 for seven. But hold out they did, though it is to be hoped that they doff their caps to The Gents, who dominated the match and lent them some players who were to have no little influence on proceedings. However, the game will always be remembered for Jim Wright’s excellent century, only the third in the club’s 186 game history. Damian Evans excepted, he played Wandham pretty much on his own, though sadly he did run out two team-mates. The contest between him and home skipper Tom Carbro was one for the connoisseur. Not content with bowling fifteen consecutive overs of remorseless accuracy, Carbro shepherded his side to safety at the end of a hot, tiring day. This was a fine day’s cricket.

Wandham are not the most organised of clubs and pitched up with only nine players, Kitan kindly agreeing to play for them after The Gents had given them an extra fielder, rotated every ten overs. The start was delayed as a rugby match, which overlapped the boundary on the station side of the ground, was finishing off. As the rugger chaps disappeared behind closed doors to shove potatoes up each other’s arses and conduct after-shave lotion drinking contests, the cricket began at 2.20pm.

The homesters went up for a caught behind off Jimmy in the first over. A renowned walker, he stayed put and therefore did not believe that he had got a nick. Nor did the umpire. This incident perhaps explained a sustained lack of applause when the ton did arrive, although Wandham were complimentary enough to him after the game. The Wright/Bodders stand yielded 39 in ten overs which would have been fifty had (a) Bodders backed up and sprinted the singles as he did at Raynes Park in his previous outing and (b) had The Gents not loaned the sensational fielder Damian Beepath, a vicious little ferret in the outfield who just hates the ball to elude him. Beepo was replaced by Scibo, who four balls later ran out Bodds with a neat throw to the ‘keeper after Jim had called for the quick single. Had Bodders grounded his bat, he might have made it. No matter as Damian Evans helped post 65 merry runs for the notoriously difficult second wicket in exactly fifteen overs. The Welshman is slightly built and plays mainly off the back foot, which limits the power of his attractive off-driving, but his pull is already the finished article. The ton came up in the 26^th over before Evans clipped to square-leg Thompson, who had completely lost the plot while bowling, sending down a succession of balls which bounced half a dozen times before dribbling wide of the stumps. His catch ensured that his day was not wasted. By this time Carbro and the enormous Simon Wardle were ensuring that The Gents did not completely run away with it. Indeed, the second half of the innings yielded only four more runs than the first. Steady, if not spectacular, The Gents did enough to ensure that, for the first time, they would not leave this ground defeated.

As a succession of partners came and went, Jimmy went on and on. He gave one chance, a skier off the meat of the bat declined by mid-on Wardle but defended the good ball and ruthlessly dispatched anything short or wide. The Patels gave him merry, fleeting support before they were bowled by good inswingers, before, Boycott-like, Jim then claimed his second run out victim, Mark Sciberras. Wickets began to tumble as the declaration hour of 5pm loomed. Kitan Patel, who lest we forget was Wandham’s best bowler the last time these sides met, pitched up at 4.45pm, changed, and promptly signed a one-match contract with the hosts. Too late to have an impact with the ball, the contest between him and Jim would have been worth savouring.

Mr Wright’s century came up in Wardle’s twelfth over, the 41^st of the innings. A booming pull over mid-wicket for four took him to 98. The next ball was short and wide of the leg-stump. Jim pulled again, backward of square this time. The ball evaded square-leg and crossed the boundary to great whoops and cheers, few of them from the oppo. Job done, he edged behind next ball. Damian Beepath, bowled soon after registering his first run for the club, and Heapo, copping a highish lbw courtesy of some hysterical appealing (The Gents would be no better later) fell in the dying embers of the innings. Some humpty from Chris Beaumont, a plumb lbw off the last ball of the innings to dismiss Snarler, and that was that.

As the rugby players’ games of spudarse became ever louder, The Gents took the field. Dear Scibo asked to field in the slips as he "Wished to make amends for my contribution, which had so far favoured the opposition more than my own team." An amusing, articulate statement of intent, it stirred the Gods of cricketing superstition from their slumbers for within a few minutes he would be offered, and would spurn, a regulation chance off Sanjay. By this time, though, Snarler and Sanjay were among the wickets and deservedly so, as huge appeal followed huge appeal. Rayner was bowled by a full-toss in the second over, the first of seven wickets to tumble in the first seventeen. Snarler claimed four, three leg-before (out of five given in the match) while Sanjay also bowled Connor and had Williams well caught by mid-off Heapo, his first Gent catch.

After Carbro and Wardle comfortably blocked out the final overs of Sanjay’s spell and got Stuart’s measure, Snarler opted for spin. Bodders was tight, Dhruv more penetrative but the breakthrough would not come against two solid batsmen bent on survival. Games such as this are rare. The Gents blocked out 50 for five to draw against Twelve Angry Men (196 for five) in 1994. Later that season, London Saints’ 64 for nine saved the game and of course The Gents themselves have secured two recent draws with New Barbarian Weasels with totals of 67 for eight and 81 for nine. Memory recalls a great sense of relief each time – a draw is an honourable result. One had to admire then the two batsmen. They had bowled 28 overs between them in stifling heat, yet got their heads down and played for their team. Dhruv had a good shout for a leg before when Wardle was trapped on the back foot, the same batsman sliced a fast full-toss in and out of Beaumont’s gloves and Snarler induced a low edge off Carbro through the slips in his brave, desperately unlucky second spell, but otherwise the batsmen resisted capably for over seventeen overs.

Given that tea was taken on the dot of five, how did The Gents only get through 36 overs before 7.30pm, including twenty in the final hour? Boundaries were scarce and field changes minimal until the tweakers came on. Did The Gents bat too long? Always a difficult call. Wandham easily chased The Gents’ 152 here a year before and who would have wanted to bring Jimmy in on, say, 92 or 93 not out? Might Snarler have rung a few more changes with the bowling? All that one can fairly conclude is that it was slightly disappointing that thirteen overs of spin did not produce a wicket, but this was a placid pitch that held up to the end. Having driven the Angries crazy with a 41 stand for the ninth wicket one week before, Captain Snelling was on the receiving end here. He will be no worse for the experience.