Any notions that The Gents may have had that they had sussed this cricket lark were dispelled by the best batting seen this season. That the hosts, a casual team but one which has a number of current and ex-local league players, proposed a retiral rule at fifty was ominous. So, sadly, were the clouds, which banked over the local hills, lending the afternoon a gothic atmosphere. The inevitable rain came and the match was eventually abandoned at 5.30pm after The Gents had recovered somewhat from a nightmare start. Having not recorded in these annals a single fifty against The Gents since Church Street Nomads visited in September 1999, the brilliant Bedouins’ openers made it three in two days, all doomily relayed by the all-too-visible scoreboard.

This manor house ground is without doubt the most beautiful at which The Gents have ever played. It is superbly found in rolling hills and boasts wickets, which, according to local lore, are better than Kidderminster’s county pitches, though Victor disagrees, having played in several recent low-scoring affairs here. A bridle-path runs alongside one side and was well used all day with local ladies riding by in their traps. At one point a saddled, riderless horse galloped by, a slightly sinister sight, though it was probably just returning for its nosebag at the stables. The other abut woodland and two paddocks complete with whinnying horses. The ground is pregnant with cricketing history. The Earl of Rutland founded it, and got an Eleven of England to play Twenty-two of the Rest of England here in the 1850s in front of a crowd of 20,000. Bodders and Andy Burman remember being taken to it. A vast retinue of horses (6/- a day) and men (2/- a day) were required to roll the wicket. Though this beauty may be lost on some, it certainly was not on The Gents, who were so in awe that they produced their worst bowling of the season. The mayhem of the previous evening, capped with a huge roast lunch and several libations in the hours preceding the match, of course had no effect on the bowling whatsoever. Compton and Miller could do it. The Gents can’t.

Buck apologised to the umpires, club chairman and groundsman respectively, after fifteen balls for the appalling bowling. He later said "Even in their darkest moments Chad have never plumbed those depths." And one has to agree that 29 for two off two overs was not an ideal start and, yes, there were long-hops and wides galore. But the power of stroke possessed by Nick Moxon and Birmingham League player Rhys Thomas was something rarely seen at The Gents’ level. Indeed, southpaw Thomas took Sanjay for the first six anyone can remember seeing off him, an astonishing pick-up drive over mid-wicket.