One has to qualify The Gents’ elation at this astounding margin of victory (the second hundred-run caning of NBW in five weeks) by stating that this was a below-strength Weasels’ eleven, lacking many of the major batters and bowlers who have tormented past Gent teams. Nor did the visitors do themselves any favours when the pacy, accurate Comber pitched up late at a quarter to four. And it is also true that The Gents could well end 2000 with no silverware in the cupboard, much like the blistering Spurs team did in 1986-87. Yet there is a fantastic vibe in the club at the moment, the chief reason for which is Mr Snelling’s calm, assertive captaincy. The simple facts of this game are that after conceding a huge total, Weasels lost one of their best batsmen first ball and while they kept wickets in hand, their scoring rate was so slow that they needed more than six an over from the eighth over of the innings. Credit, therefore, Snarler and Sanjay for this, as well as doffing school caps to Dhruv and the rest of the Gents’ middle-order for some fine batting.

One a sunny but cool day, Pongo took a look at the hard wicket but was totally undecided about what to do if he won the toss. His senior professionals urged him to bat and he did so. Your Match Reporter, scoring for both sides, noted with interest that NBW were having a good season, beating some top sides and drawing with Urbans, reeling off two hundred-odd against Urbs’ trivial matter of 300 for three. A shaven haven wicket was paradise for batsmen and Buck and Jimmy (three blistering fours in his first seven balls faced) responded but sadly Swiss mistonked to mid-off in the fourth over. Dhruv settled down nicely, though his regulation early lofted drive was only a foot over cover’s hands, while Jim played the ball at will. It was a shock when he was out, edging faintly to Massey in the eleventh over. Umpire Snarler heard and saw nothing. Well done Mr Wright (Nyarggh! Tedious eulogising, what I do is far funnier. Stevie B).

Dhruv and Damo then posted 65 attractive runs in exactly thirteen overs bowled in 48 minutes. Dhruv drove Jones’s off-spin down the hill to the pavilion for fourteen runs in one over, while the Welshman clipped neat successive fours to the short railway boundary off Gary Lynch as the hundred came up in the twentieth over. He drove over a Pagan leg-break for his usual twenty-something but it is surely only a matter of time before he goes on to make a fifty. He has a good eye, which is why he can play the ball so late. However, the main talking point concerning Damian was his fabulous sideburns. Think Ian Chappell’s 1974-75 Aussies or the 1974 Dutch football team. Even then, you wouldn’t be close. They are the stuff of fantasy.

Sanjay and Dhruv started brightly, though the former’s heavy lunch militated against too much sprinting and at 144 for three after 28 overs The Gents had hopes of a very silly score. Then Sanjay was plumb lbw pulling across the line before, eight runs later, Dhruv chased Ahmed’s first ball, a long-hop that bounced twice and would have been a wide on the next pitch, scooping it to point. No matter, his 62 was a Gents’ PB. Everyone was delighted for him and NBW applauded generously when his eighth and final boundary brought up the personal milestone. He last scored a fifty against Enterprise in 1999 and very charmed it was. This was a better innings all round and was most welcome.

Before this game, four Gents, Messrs. Dimond, Heap, Hill and Patel (K) proudly shared top place in the batting averages, depending of course on how one defines the criteria for the sort facility in the spreadsheet. A batting average of 0.00 over a season is pretty special but by end of the afternoon Dimo and Heapo would be leaping up (or down) the list while Mr Naish would replace them. The Enterprise lads hit 32 off only 28 balls, just what the doctor ordered. Once they fell, trying to force things along, the innings subsided to late arrival Dan Comber, though Scibo produced a rattling good pull for four off him. The final damage was 208, containing 25 fours and a shedload of extras. The youthful Weasels’ side never wilted in the field, and Gary Lynch did a smashing job keeping up morale when the ball was being biffed all over the park. He is a worthy successor to Bill Flack and Derek Kirkwood as skipper of a fine club.

After a twenty minute break, play resumed just after 5 o’clock. A second half-time Burgergate was narrowly avoided when Buck and Naish bequeathed most of their meal to the oppo, which was very sporting of them. NBW opened with Dan Comber and Springbok Roy Newlands, who had both batted pleasantly in the corresponding drawn match one year before. Ball One and wouldn’t you know it, Snarler unleashed a satanic inswinging yorker to disturb Comber’s off-stump. Time seemed to stand still. Nobody could quite believe it. This may have explained the odd period of play that then ensued, though credit must be given to some superb bowling from Pongo and Sanjay. While Tom Pagan just blocked, Newlands oscillated between wild tonking and stoic defence, giving several chances to Colin and a toughie to diving mid-off Dimo. All of this was underscored by manic running and calling that had the rest of the Weasels tearing their hair out. If the strategy was to see off The Gents’ opening bowlers it failed, as Snarler struck twice in his sixth and seventh overs. First, he got one through Pagan’s defences and then induced the demise of the suspiciously French-sounding Boulanger, to an Authentic Dismissal, a clip high to the right of silly mid-on Sanjay, who took a fine reaction catch one handed.

Newlands and Sier represented the mammals’ best chance of victory. The former took Dhruv for ten in his second over, all pulls to the short railway boundary as the spinner settled into his rhythm, and they added 34 pleasantly enough in seven overs. The problem was that the run rate required was rising all the time and was already up around seven at the innings’ mid-point. Toddy afterwards professed disappointment at the runs he conceded but the way the arithmetic worked out, the ask was seven an over when he meandered in for his first ball and nine an over when he took his sweater. It was simply too much for the visitors.

After giving four or five aerial chances, Newlands now decided to chance his sprinting ability against short mid-wicket Snarler’s throw off the last ball of Dhruv’s fifth over. He failed to make his ground for the first of three run outs in the innings. Skipper Lynch was bowled by the Dhruv leggie two overs later. When Stefan Sier was spectacularly run out by mid-on Sanjay, another direct hit but from a sharper angle than Snarler’s, it was all up. Dhruv winkled out Jones lbw, then Edgerton holed out off Dimo to long-on Sanjay, on the day the only fielder who was likely to catch it. Scibo’s neat spell unluckily went wicketless. The communication between Atif Ahmed and Andy Smith always looked likely to end in tears, and a calm throw from Scibo into Colin’s gloves was all that was needed when the two batsmen held a conference for several minutes at the bowler’s end. A frankly knackered Sanjay was now bowling spin for the first time in a proper Gents’ game. He gave the ball a rare old tweak too and Paul Massey’s bails went flying second ball. Victory by 107 runs then to continue the unbeaten run, all over by ten past seven, both sides bowling their overs at an impressive eighteen an hour plus. Snarler professed himself "absolutely delighted" with the performance, but eight dropped catches compelled him to deliver a post-match warning that the club would be made to suffer in future games should there be a repetition. Harshly described as a "bollocking" on the club’s message board, the eminent paceman denied that his softly worded address constituted same, though people were certainly silent while he was talking. With Snarler you listen. At school, it was always the quiet teachers one feared the most.