You don't win many matches with only eight players.  Skip Jon Webley won the toss and opted to bat on a gloriously sunny if windswept day at the picturesque Orsett ground in deepest Essex. 

Ritwick was bowled by a beaut, Haroon slapped one to cover (good catch), Craig dollied a full toss to square leg.  Webley and Mohamed showed their quality in a useful stand before Lahrie holed out to mid off.  Jon steered us to a batting point before edging behind on 49.  Brown drove loftily over mid off for 4 before being out trying to repeat the shot.  Hardisty dug in to accumulate 10 before being bowled round his legs trying to sweep.  Nuggsy collected a not out.  The oppo gave short shrift to our attempt to rope in a couple of their youngsters to play for us (although thankfully they did allow them to field) - note no generosity on the scale we gave to Ally Pally last year.

The bowling unit did well as there were only 10 (including those youngsters) fielders.  Haroon took two catches including a  collector's item at slip.  The opener who got 10 faced out 27 consecutive dot balls from James at one end (a very passable impression of the recently deceased Essex great Bailey).  Their number three had one shot which was a club to mid on (one of which lost the shiny new ball sadly) and it took a while for the bowlers to sus that pitching it half way down the pitch was the way to stem the flow (the skip's dropping him at slip did not help). However, their number 4 always looked comfortable except for against Haroon who bowled very well at him but could not find the outside edge despite numerous plays and misses.  The no 4 bat also was merciless on anything short.