On a beautiful day at Upper Club, the Ramblers won the toss and elected to bat in a 50 over game.

 Finn O’Brien and Tom Gnodde started the innings at a good lick before last year’s centurion was unfortunately run out. Tom batted well for 48 as did Nico MacDonagh (36) as our innings was dominated by a sublime 109 from Hector Hardman. Post lunch, the XI bowled and fielded very well and dismissed the Ramblers in the last over of the innings for 264.

 In reply, the XI were faced with a fine Ramblers attack led by James Bruce and Rory MacDonagh. Rolling back the years, Bruce showcased his ability with a fine spell of seam and swing bowling which at one stage saw him bowling with 4 slips and a gully to Ben Elias (the leading batsman in the XI) ultimately for him to be caught at 3^rd slip by Jamie Gnodde……absolute class. Thereafter a combination of Ed Bruce, Finn, Archie Reynolds and Sam Ellison all bowled with great skill and kept the XI under constant scoreboard pressure. Noted highlights were Nico’s wicket keeping which included a brilliant leg side stumping off Ed’s bowling, Sam’s extraordinary catch at midwicket from a thunderous slog sweep of Finn’s bowling and finally and by no means last an innings of real poise and maturity by Harry Thistlethwayte who ended up on 93*. At stumps, the XI were 50 odd runs short.

 An excellent day played against a determined XI full of super lads and led extremely well by this year’s very impressive Captain of XI, Charlie Lyons.