A miraculous weather window opened to herald the start of the 2004 season.

The wind and rain of the preceding week vanished as the Pilgrims assembled in their nominated watering hole, conferring a hopeful prospect on the assembled team.

The Pilgrims walked out onto the field of play and inspected the ground. As expected, the rain had made it soft underneath but dry on the surface, and batters were advised to “get well forward”, “don’t get out driving”, and similar wise words. We were exhorted by our captain Kommander to stay in at all costs.

The toss was lost and the Librarians inserted the Pilgrims. The new opening partnership of Daisy and Bully made their way out to the crease. The pitch was green and even, and the bounce was low but true. The opening bowler Marke was particularly accurate, and scoring proceeeded slowly.

Bully got out with a mistimed drive looping up to backward point, and Daisy followed a little later, misreading a full toss. Tipple followed shortly afterwards, and with the score at 18-3, it was looking a little worrying.

Pookie and newcomer Adrian (old hand of the Tabard, however) put things to rights, Adrian putting up solid defence, and Pookie exhibiting his customary death-defying feats of batsmanship, knurdling the ball around for ones and twos in charectaristic wicket-keeper / batsman style. All that was required to complete the Alan Knott / Jack Russell illusion was a large, floppy, grimy sunhat.

Adrian fell in the end, bringing the Colonel to the crease. An unwise half-hearted paddle saw him dismissed on 4, much to his own disgust. This brought in the Kommander himself, just in time to play a captain’s innings at 52-5. Never knowingly described as a half-hearted cricketer, the Kommander led the way out of the mire, with an extravagant innings full of extravagant shots, many of which came off. Others of which had Charlie in stiches from the spectator’s gallery.

Pookie couldn’t last for ever and eventually fell with 24 runs to his name. This brought RIPA to the crease, followed not very much later by Whisper. Whisper exhibited remarkable staying power, if his stroke play might be described as conservative. The important thing by this stage was to give the Kommander the opportunity to see out our remaining overs if possible, his early-innings glitches having by now given way to reliable big-hitting.

Whisper was eventually followed by Hansie and then Curly. The Kommander – Curly combination resulted in a mid-wicket tango of the highest order, in which all 13 players on the pitch plus both umpires must have been involved. In the process of taking a single, both players at some stage gave up the ghost thinking that they must be out, then tried to run each other out in turn. Luckily the Librarians were all laughing far too much to be able to think or throw straight. The last wicket fell on the last ball of what was probably the last over in any case, and with the Pilgrims on 135 all out, we retired for tea.

Needless to say, Daisy was heartily relieved not to be opening after the interval, and was able to appreciate the tea without apprehension.

We returned to the field thinking that we had done pretty well, and had a good chance of a win. Our opening bowlers, Tipple and Kommander, kept them pretty quiet and the fielding, if not exactly super-sharp, was at least reliable. Chances however, were very scarce. The Colonel dropped a difficult chance running backwards from mid-off, and that was about the only sniff we had until Whisper bowled the opener at 35-1.

Meanwhile, the no. 2 batsman, Marke (also their opening bowler), was settling in for a big score. Kommander bowled the no. 3 for 13, but penetration was difficult to come by. Hansie, Bully and the Colonel all had their turns, with the Colonel particularly unlucky to have 2 catches dropped from mistimed pulls.

When the 20 overs were called, the score was 57 and we reckoned we could at least get away with a draw, but the runs started to come more freely, and the batsmen piled on the pressure by nicking occasional quick singles to which they weren’t really entitled. The end came with some 7 overs to spare, so a disappointing end to a match which, for the most part, had seemed quite promising.

So I suppose, in the end, when all’s said and done, we were, in fact, Doomed.