'Harry, it's under the cow.'

Little Kingshill 38 all out

WCC 39 for 1

WCC won by 9 wickets

Report by Chris Douglas

When fine-leg saves more runs than the 'keeper, and when the offside ring of fire can be heard swapping gardening tips, and when all but one of the team's cars is manufactured in Germany, the result is a sporting unit approaching the noble bloom of its mature prime.

The game lasted just 23 overs. Nothing so unusual about that, you might say, but it wasn't due to the usual Weekenders' inability to apply themselves to anything except their own existential gloom. For once, the team's disparate elements coalesced in a ruthless pursuit of success. Or possibly it was just a case of the oppo struggling a bit for players.

Having hammered the 'Enders bowling for 243 in 34.4 overs last year, Little Kingshill now found themselves 15 for 7 after ten overs, during the course of which Douglas and Dibley improved their averages and Sam Freeman shattered a bail, sending the pieces humming seventeen yards behind the stumps. Panku, batting in a black woollen hat, hauled his team to 38.

The Weekenders knocked off the necessary in eight overs with Cooper's 29 exceeding by one the combined totals of the hosts' batsmen.

The 10-over beer match was won by a similar margin, the highlight being a monstrous six to cow corner by the home side's opener, Onash. The blow took out an upper branch of a tall ash tree before landing, appropriately enough, in a meadow being grazed by some cows. The Weekenders search party scratched at the grass in gingerly fashion and at a safe distance from the herd until an exasperated shout of 'Harry, it's under the cow!' broke the deadlock. Whitehead had to deploy his full repertoire of aggressive noises, acquired in the shebeens of the Far East, in order to shift Daisy from over the ball before play could resume.

It's true that the Weekenders haven't been able to hit a cow's arse with a banjo for most of this season but at least somebody managed to swear at one on the final day. It was a spirited flourish which offers a glimmer of hope for the future.   

Little Kingshill 38 (15 overs)

Panku 12

Bowling: Douglas 5-3-3-3; Dibley 4-1-3-2; S Freeman 3-0-9-2; Whitehead 3-0-13-2

Catch: 1, Cooper

WCC 39-1 (8 overs)

Cooper 29 not out, Bailey 1, Lyons 4 not out.

The beer Match featured a beefy 35 not out by Dunne, a debut pole for Bailey and another possible foretaste of things to come, Hogben and Smee bowling in tandem. WCC 73-4, LKCC 45.  Stonor CC vs