One day it had to happen. The long unbeaten run of the Oxford Diocesan cricket team in the ‘Church Times’ competition came to an end on a gloriously sunny day in Southgate when they were beaten by a powerful London team by 33 runs. The margin of the defeat fails to reflect the closeness of the game and had the luck went more Oxford’s way then the result would have been different.
London batted first and started slowly. Our fielding was sharp but somehow we failed by inches to effect a run out or two. There was some steady bowling from Edward Hobbs and Andrew Wingfield-Digby and because of the quality of the pitch the total of 239 set by London seemed within the grasp of our talented batting line-up.
A good start from captain Hugh White and Tim Bradshaw gave us the platform for a big score and despite losing star batsman Kingsley Went for nought there was much ground for optimism as Rob Humphreys began where he left off last year when he scored a hundred and runs flowed. Whether it was good bowling and fielding by London or fatigue catching up with our side who knows but just when we needed to push on for victory the runs started to dry up despite valiant efforts from Humphreys who scored another century the total was beyond us.
Sadly what looked like becoming an exciting finish ended rather tamely with Oxford batsmen trying desperately to score quick runs and failing! One of those batsman was the writer of this article who had the great ignominy of being caught out by his own son. I shall have to change my will!
Revd Tom Moffatt, area dean of Newbury pictured left with son Joe.
Photos Judy Ward
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