BAS V Railway Vue played at Girton College on June 22nd, 2004

Rumours that BAS might have the beating of Railway Vue this year, because most of their team were in Portugal with King Wayne, were dashed when a full strength eleven turned out for the game at Girton college last night. Having first lost the toss, we then also lost out against the weather, when the rain storm which had been forecast failed to halt proceedings on cue. Subsequently we lost the match too, though this was possibly because they were a little bit better than us.

Railway Vue's victory was achieved in spite of the home team's slightly questionable 'tactics', like over bowling our strike quartet (in contravention of the league rules apparently), and giving them a ropey old cricket ball from the bottom of the bag when we had a ripe new cherry to play with. In truth these were innocent mistakes and they didn't stay cross with us, but, much more worryingly, their game plan was also completely unaffected. Clearly we need to work on our gamesmanship, so we can at least cheat better, whenever the situation demands it.

So what of the game? Well, after we were committed to the field, BAS started out well enough. Our lean mean bowling machine kept the run chase manageable (a mere 135 to win), and with quite a strong batting line-up at our disposal, some of us believed (?) we could at least give them a good run for our match fees. However, the smart money was on the black clouds which were already teasing us to distraction.

After the change-round, our upper and middle order made several decent starts, but everyone found it quite difficult to press on against their purposeful attack. In the event, their bowlers accounted for 4 batsmen, and our running for 3 more. By the scheduled close we had managed 85 runs, some 50 short, and a result which the rain, now falling steadily, was incapable of improving.

Appropriately, the last words go to our specialist close fielder and inspired meteorologist. As the game was ebbing away, he sniffed the air and claimed, quite reasonably, he could smell the rain. Most remarkably however, the expected deluge was still about an hour away when his snozz first detected it. Film goers may recall that the lookout on Titanic was also blessed with a fine olfactory technique (which had been modified for ice detection of course). Regrettably, it does appear this particular length of apparatus serves no really useful purpose other than as an intriguing party piece, because as everyone knows, his ship was also sunk.