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Chantilly bowlers were not in their best form, struggling with the cross wind and permitting all Embassy batters to make good progress. The wind was strong, but did it account for 28 wides? - ouch. Not all our umpires would be so mean - bring back Geoffrey!

No one Embassy partnership stood out - they were all expensive. When the 5th wicket went down for 189 we hoped things might slow down a little. But in came Gillett and with 5 overs to go he convinced us that the Apremont ground wasn't quite as big as we had thought. With 3 sixes along the way, he raced to 45, getting bowled by the last ball in the innings - one in the block-hole from Shepherd.

So the Embassy innings ended at 243 for 6 - something to chew on over tea. Sandwiches and cakes were another Shepherd concoction and went down as well as ever - thanks Nick.

Chantilly opened, as for their previous game, with Nicks: Clarke and Sansbury. The bowling was canny and runs were hard to come by - Searl starting with 2 maidens.

Wickets fell at regular intervals with only Patrick Clarke, Rob Oakley and Lee Pretsell getting into the 20s.
We did get 4 sixes though, Pretsell doing his best to take out some of our more elderly spectators. However, the run rate was too low and the wicket rate too high for there to be any chance of reaching such a high target.

Umpiring was not without controversy. Late in the innings, Nicky Hedley was stumped - at least the Embassy thought so. Nick Shepherd, umpiring, turned the appeal down with the very good reason that he was looking the other way - watching his Audi being weaved between other cars on the Polo Club's impromptu proving ground.

Jack Oakley came on to bowl for the visitors and mopped up the CCC stragglers with a stumping and a bowling; finishing with a smugnessful 2 for 12.

So Chantilly lost their last wicket for 116, down by 127 runs which, according to our statisticians, was "pretty bad".

Another interesting statistic? No batsman called Nick scored more than 6 runs; all batsmen not called Nick scored a minimum 22 runs (other than Charlie Hedley's 1 not out). Clearly, when the Nicks sneeze, Chantilly gets a cold.

Special mention must be made here of those courageous Nicks who were finishing a 527 km cycle ride just the day before. Apparently they were happier playing cricket than sitting down relaxing. Congratulations to all the marathon cyclists from us mere cricketers.

Questions will inevitably be asked as to why last year's Player of the Year was offered to the opposition, as was an ex-France player, and ultimately a double-wicket taker. Who was responsible for this fiasco? I think we'll probably never really know the truth.

The rapid demise of CCC's batting did have one advantage: it gave us the chance to watch or listen to the second half of the Twenty20 final - which certainly helped cheer up any who had lost badly at cricket earlier in the evening.

And Craig if you're still occasionally looking at this website, we miss you. We especially missed you on Sunday when we could have followed the game together and talked at length about the result. And then watched the highlights.

Rob Oakley