Enterprise gained a narrow win when they took the last seven Gents’ wickets for 34 runs in perfect batting conditions. Earlier, some superb batsmanship from Keith Dimond, his dad Bill, Fitzgerald and Withers had torn the support bowlers to shreds. Having inflicted many a merry collapse on all sorts of oppo since the President’s Cup, The Gents proved that when the mood is on them they can crumble with the best. Perhaps it was the sun, but all weekend people had been talking bollocks. Phil Hill’s view on the Saturday team was that it would "struggle in the batting." Toddy agreed; "we’ve got all our batsmen playing tomorrow." The result, 184 for four declared. Tony Buck had confided that when he first saw The Gents’ 2000 fixture list, he "didn’t think The Gents would win a game until Enterprise." Certainly, many people would have predicted a 1-1 outcome from this weekend, but few, perhaps, would have got the results the right way round.

Snarler had decided to give everyone a go for this fixture, which post-match set up a good discussion about how the club should approach those fixtures traditionally regarded as more casual. The first point is that just because a team is crap one year it does not follow that it will be the next. Enterprise teams, after years of decline, were actually quite good in 1998 and 1999. Their August 1999 team would have beaten several on the circuit. The second is that you should never underestimate anyone, as The Gents famously did in the 1993 Owls and 1996 Urbans games. The third is that The Gents’ long unbeaten run has masked an over-dependence with bat and ball on a few players, namely Ashton, Boddington, the Patels, Snelling and Wright.

The two poles of thought in the club on this sensitive issue are represented by Jimmy (play to win and if it’s over by three o’clock so be it) and Sanjay (some defeats don’t matter as long as everyone has a go and does their best). What you really want to do is involve everyone and still win, but that is not as easy as it seems. Playing a game gently is a tough call. Snarler, Sanjay and Jim bowled only fourteen balls between them but The Gents nevertheless dominated large swathes of this game, though they lost the big overs.

They flew out of the traps like greyhounds at the leash and reduced Enterprise to 15 for four. Elliot Freedman edged Toddy to second slip Scibo, an excellent juggling catch and an Authentic Dismissal. The Australian ex-rugby league player McEvoy, who had not played for fifteen years, mistimed a hook into Beepo’s gloves and Price launched Hemin high backward of square-leg where Sanjay took a well-judged catch. When Heapo Junior was bowled Snarler decided to bring on the support bowling. This match reporter thinks that he was right to do so. Though you might win more matches by relying on the core three or four class all rounders that most sides have, it is most important to encourage new members and stalwarts. Scibo’s first two balls to big Dimo saw a four and lost ball six over the barbed wire onto the railway embankment but he recovered to take three good wickets. Fitzgerald was as aggressive, Andy Burman dropping a skyer off Scibo as the batsmen made hay. In the end Mark outed both batsmen, a caught Swiss Tony Aussie-style at long-on to see off Dimo for a fine 32 and an lbw off the most muted, genteel of appeals to out Fitzgerald. Chris Beaumont, who had earlier forecast a duck, prodded to Jim at cover to achieve it and Enterprise were 76 for seven.

Bill Dimond began tentatively but then began to play a few shots. Still, when Norden holed out to Snarler off Kitan it looked all up. The Gents had dominated the game but just when you think you’ve got cricket sussed, it bites you. Neither Buck nor Burman, nor the returning Hemin and Toddy could dislodge the pair, who played some good forcing shots. Withers did not look an experienced cricket but he is young, fit and has a good eye. Dimond senior has clearly played thousands of games and found the gaps easily, running superbly between the wickets. The score sky-rocketed, and the pair were within one run of the record 9^th-wicket partnership record in Gents games set by Rosy West and Jez Owen of the Weasels when Snarler bowled Bill with a full-toss. It had been a splendid recovery by the visitors. All the bowlers struggled with wides, though Beepo gave a good debut performance with the gloves, his Fashion Error blue shirt notwithstanding.

Though 161 off 35 overs was a tough ask, the shaven haven of Victoria RG still had plenty of runs in it. And The Gents were up with the rate throughout, the top five all making double figures. Sanjay took a four and two off Dimo’s opening over and Swiss Tony was in an aggressive mood. Then, in the fifth over, Sanjay picked out mid-wicket McEvoy, who took a good catch. The Gents were not exactly brimming with quality batsmen so could ill-afford to lose Buck to a lbw, courtesy of Scibo (under intimidation from young Beaumont!), which we shall describe as marginal, though Tony had another word for it. In this writer’s many years of cricket, only a handful of batsmen have agreed with an lbw appeal answered in favour of the bowler, though Victor Richmond is curiously one of them. Forgoing a bat hurl, Swiss soon chilled out.

Just as they did in August 1999, Jim and Pongo set out their stall and while they were together The Gents’ optimism barometer briefly stopped plummeting. They added 72 in only 75 balls, with respectively seven and two fours. Freedman got some turn with his leggies but tended to over-pitch, so fair play to Dimo for plugging the railway boundary with some good fielders. Price’s seamers were accurate but he achieved no movement and was driven with confidence. Dimo had to find a fifth bowler and just as Uma Mahesh did the job in 1999, so did pops here. His off-spin was right on the money and proved a temptation too far for Jim, who swept the third ball to square-leg, where Dimo junior leapt to take a splendid catch. The dismissed batsman colourfully debriefed this heart-warming family moment on his return to the pavilion, gently drawing attention to the enigma of Dimo’s form for Enterprise and The Gents, something to which we shall return later. There were still six wickets in hand and the hosts needed only 52 runs off the last fourteen overs, which became 40 off thirteen after Norden got the yips, conceding five wides and seven off the bat in his only over. Snarler then holed out to mid-wicket, a good catch but he had no need to play the shot.