Did you ever see the like? Perhaps the most astonishing hour’s cricket in Gents’ history saw Horace Hibbert and Mark Sciberras blaze 108 runs off just 14 overs, smashing in the process the record ninth-wicket stand in Gents’ games. Nobody who witnessed it will ever forget the destruction wrought by Horace on the Virgin attack. He faced only 50 balls and hit four sixes and ten fours in achieving his personal best score. Only Mark Ashton in his 137 at Surbiton in 1992 and his brother Bob in his 54 at Twickenham in 1989 came close to this level of mayhem. Certainly two of his three straight sixes were the biggest ever seen in a Gents’ game. One went into the trees thirty feet above the sightscreen at the Town End, while the other cleared the trees at the Pavilion End and hit a block of flats three flights up on the full, at a guess a hit of 120 yards. Yet though it was his day, massive credit should also be given to Scibo, who produced his best innings yet, his fifth consecutive score into double figures. When Scibo took guard, the game was as good as over according to William Hill, who had The Gents at 50/1. Virgins were laughing, joking and generally larging it. When he fell with fourteen balls of the innings left, the tables had been turned. The bowling simply withered under the sustained assault. Fierce bowling and able fielding, including a season’s best seven catches, then saw The Gents romp home at 6.30pm by 67 runs, only the Casuals’ third defeat in twenty games in 2000.

Virgin are a competitive outfit and it was going to be interesting to see how a fairly strong Gents’ side would cope with them. The day dawned bright but on arriving at the ground the players realised that the groundsman had made a cock-up of the first magnitude, forgetting to remove the covers the day before. It had chucked it down on the Friday, so the result was a wicket sodden in parts and dry and cracked in others. An adjacent wicket was cut and rolled, and after all manner of Proper Cricket faffing about involving painting the crease lines it was not until one o’clock that play began, Bernie taking a nanosecond to insert The Gents. Having criticised the groundsman, let us doff caps to Virgin, a yappy but friendly bunch and generous hosts, who provided tea, 20-over drinks in each innings and an umpire who stood for the whole game.

Millar, pacy with a good action and the slower, guileful wily Rolfe, bowling their spells through, were a handful on the damp wicket. Max cut Millar and on-drove Rolfe for fours before chipping to mid-wicket in the fourth over. Jim was soon dropped by mid-on Bernie, a dolly, but the lapse was inexpensive as Millar brought one back to knock back Golden Bollocks’ middle-stump in the eleventh over. Rolfe then struck twice in his final over. He bowled a short-pitched wrong ‘un, but a wrong ‘un nevertheless, to Dhruv, who spotted it but decided to go through with his shot and chipped to gully. Next ball, poor Sanjay was trapped in front of his stumps and fingered lbw by Burman after a decent interval for deliberation had given the Wembley Wonder fleeting hope of a reprieve. Meanwhile, Neil Hadfield was playing the anchor role well. Blocking the good balls and clattering the bad, he hit six fours before steering to slip in the 19^th over. Eddie then briefly stirred The Gents, the first hint that Virgins were not going to have things all their own way. A brutal on-driven four ball one and a hook into the trees for six showed his power of shot before he too holed out.

Damo edged the off-spinner Bailey to first slip before, five runs later, Snarler’s cameo ended with the sixth catch of the innings. Until this point, nothing untoward had happened. The Gents were 90 for eight when Scibo joined Horace. Of the 124 chaps to have worn Gent colours, only the Ashton brothers could have done what Horace proceeded to do. He blocked his first two balls from Levesley, then creamed the next Bailey over for two, a pulled four, a dot ball, a six into the trees and two more pulled fours. Over the next few overs, as Virgins rang the changes, it was clear that a true partnership was emerging. Though he took most of the strike, Horace did not need to shield Scibo from the bowling, nor did he attempt to do so. It was the day when the Maltese Falcon, by a country mile the best outfielder in the club, came of age as a batsman. Boundaries flew from both batsmen, from Horace four sixes and ten fours, from Scibo five fours. For aesthetic pleasure, nothing all season has exceeded the cover-driven fours executed by Horace off Levesley and Scibo off Arnold. Virgin were powerless to stop the onslaught, though Horace was given a life, in the 32^nd over with the total 152, when the bowler ran the length of the pitch only to spill the chance. By then, the previous Gents’ wicket record set by Masher and Snarler in 1997 was a memory. Horace then took two sixes off Arnold, a pull over square-leg and the biggest of the lot into a block of flats, the hit of the season. The Gents were 170 for eight off 35 overs, having added 80 runs in eleven. Scibo brought up the hundred stand in the 38^th over with a pull for four, adding another one slashed over the slips in the same over before being bowled. He returned to the bosom of The Gents to great applause. There remained time for Horace to blast a final six off Marshall into the Town End sightscreen and Andy B to score three not out before Bernie Spratt bowled Horace with only two balls of the innings remaining to finish things off on a large 213 all out. This writer has only ever missed eight Gents games, but what happened next was a first. Horace’s team-mates spontaneously formed a guard of honour to applaud him back through the gate into the pavilion. Given such factors as the position of the side when he took guard and the standard of bowling a strong case could be made that his was the best innings seen in a Gents’ game. Nobody currently on the circuit could have played it. As a gesture of respect, the club will help sponsor him for the 2001 Transplant Games in Tokyo.

The Gents were cock-a-hoop while Virgins were somewhat gloomy about their prospects. On a high higher than Mount Kiliminjaro, Snarler then proceeded to take some storming decisions, a succession of King Midas moments. This more than atoned for his below par spell of bowling which failed to add to his disappointing return of just two of the Queen’s wickets since his return from holiday. Though he is inclined to blame this on being a fat git, just as plausible is the debilitating effect that his holiday destination, France, would have on any right-thinking Englishman. Come to think of it, was not the disastrous foray into gay porn star shorts in 1999 just after a similar sojourn?

Sanjay took his 30^th wicket of the year by yorking Bailey, which brought in the combative left-hander Marshall. He and Hilton’s stand was competent enough but bloody annoying due to their insistence on minute changes to the sightscreen every time the batsmen changed ends. It took several overs before the penny dropped that the game would flow better if members of the batting side helped out rather than The Gents’ mid-on and mid-off. It was time for Nasser Snelling’s Midas Moment 1. He took himself off after five overs (Sanjay bowled his excellent spell through) and brought on Gloveless Eddie from the Pavilion End. First, Marshall miscued to mid-wicket Hadfield, who took careful responsibility for the catch with Jimmy lurking in the vicinity. Then, two balls later, Hilton edged a fearsome delivery to young Scibo at the wicket. A huge appeal but the umpire gave nothing and it was High Noon for a few seconds until Hilton said "I suppose I did glove it" and marched off. After a good stand, Midas Moment 2 saw Snarler ask gully Sanjay to go back ten (slip Hibbo had mentioned the same thing to Scibo a few moments before). The very next ball Richard Alack (who with Bernie posted that epic 131 for the first-wicket in this fixture in 1998) miscut high into Sanjay’s safe mitts for his eighth catch of the season, not bad for an outfielder.