A team effort sinks the league leaders by 34 runs

Just about managing to negotiate the south London traffic on the hottest day of the year so far, RCC arrived at picturesque Shepperton to be inserted on a hard, decent pitch with short boundaries.

Things didn’t start well as Shepperton made decent inroads into the RCC top-order before RCC’s man of the match Ashley Naumann (44) got into the game and started to take the attack to Shepperton’s bowlers. So fluent was Naumann’s driving that he had an uplifting effect on the rest of the RCC middle order. Soon they were all joining him in striking through the line of the ball on Shepperton’s true pitch. Chad Potter 38 not out, Stuart Turner 38, Darcy Wright 29, Ed Stephenson 27, Joe Urban 23 all pitched in and played some excellent cricket. For the first time this season RCC played with confidence with the bat in hand. Everyone from numbers 2 to 8 contributed with decent knocks that kept the scoreboard rattling along. As bowling and fielding became more and more difficult in the heat, RCC managed to put up a score that would prove challenging to chase down.

Both Chad Potter and Stuart Turner bowled with great heart with the new ball and were unlucky not to take wickets. It was left to Naumann (5 for 44) and Hemish Gunasekara (5 for 69) to settle in with line and length bowling from either end to restrict and finally remove the Shepperton batting order. Naumann in particular bowled a number of booming in-swingers that knocked over the stumps on three occasions. Wickets fell regularly thanks mainly to excellent support from Messers Kent, Sethi and Potter hanging on magnificently in the outfield, but a draw still looked the likeliest outcome. Unbelievably, in the final over RCC managed to winkle out the last two wickets in a flurry of excitement. The first was a fine stumping from Ed Stephenson and the second a vital catch from Darcy Wright in the gully. The catch off the penultimate ball of the game included a heart in the mouth moment where Wright showed off his jazz hands whilst juggling the ball from one to the other.

Like a Tennessee Williams play, the heat of the day sent the blood rising. When all was said and done the Shepperton opening batsman took an unhealthy shine to the RCC skipper. Maybe the lesson from the game can be gleaned from a few lines from Kipling, who may not know about final ball finishes whilst playing for Roehampton, but who definitely spent a lot of time dealing with the heat:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
'Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more – it’s only a game of low level Fullers 2nd XI division 2 cricket, my son.
Cheer up and learn to hit the ball.

A final mention must go to the Shepperton umpire who had an excellent game and was meticulously fair to both sides.

Man of the match – Ashley Naumann for a match winning performance with the bat and ball.
(report by Hemish Gunasekara)