Thanks to Dave, Theresa, Boris and Rishi our life expectancy is incredibly going down and thanks to Liz (remember her?) all our taxes are sky rocketing. With those 2 things increasingly less certain the country desperately needs some form of stability, it needs something it can hold on to in these tough times. It needs the calmness, efficiency and brilliance of Didsbury 3s on a Sunday.

Some say i over exaggerate these match reports to distract myself from the mundane task of office life and specifically today's job of arguing with a French guy about the cost of pate. I say to these people, maybe. But I am not over-exaggerating the calm and efficient way Didsbury 3s are going about their business this year.
So many different players contributing match winning performances shows how strong we are as a team and a club in general.

Alderley opted to bat in the baking heat as i once again lost the toss. They came out full of intent to take the game to us. Now i had mentally prepared myself that i would be waving any ball past me to the boundary and the chance of me diving on rock hard ground was close to zero.
Ringo, though, was having none of this and within the first over had flung himself to the rope (which was a massive ship-like rope) to turn a boundary into a 2. This absolutely set the tone for the team's fielding which was fantastic in baking conditions. Not a mis-field of note and again highlights how good we are as a team this season in all aspects of the game.

Enam and Ben again bowled well but were met with some solid batting from a good Alderley top order and with Enam's early breakthrough our only success i turned to CB Singh to get us going.

2 balls and 2 wickets, the second an absolute beaut clipping the off bail as their captain played to leg was as much a success for CB as it was for myself bringing him on at just the right moment. Congrats to us both. 7 overs, 3/16 was a great effort and really got us through their dangerous top order.

At the other end Luuk bowled a superb opening 3 overs before the drinks break and unlucky not to get a wicket. Someone spiked his cordial at that point so we won't talk about the 2 overs after the break...

This brought Owen on to bowl. I keep expecting at some point some nerves or some bad balls but they never come. Relentless accuracy brought ever increasing pressure on them to play reckless shots. Wickets tumbled leaving them with one remaining senior batsmen. An ex 2s captain who could still hit a ball. After OG did away with his variation ball of seam up fodder that rightly got put out of the ground he did for their main man with some great flight.

After he departed we got the Russian doll procession of ever decreasing juniors. All of which could not cope with Owen who finished with astounding figures of 5/15.

Seb Byrne at the other end has struggled at times with his length but that was yesterdays news as he didnt miss his line or length at all in a brilliant 5 over spell. Ably assisting OG at the other end to bring their run rate to a grinding halt and leave Alderley with an under par score of 130.

Adam and Ringo opened up and faced a barrage of bouncers from Alderley's juniors. Quite amusing in all honesty watching Ringo get peppered by teenagers. Wasn't a great tactic, though, as they both blazed their way to 31 from 20 odd balls each.

Both out tamely brought Whiteside and Mo Sharjeel to the crease. You may remember Whiteside from 4 weeks ago getting given out caught from a beamer. Wellllll this week i won't comment, i will merely give the contesting summaries.

Umpire (one of ours...) "It was hitting leg i think"
Whiteside "I'm stood 2 foot outside my crease, the ball is swinging in and i'm playing to leg. If that is hitting another set i'd be surprised."

See you in 4 weeks Whiteside (i hope...)

I embarrassingly played entirely for my own average and deservedly got out as a result, hopeless. An excellent innings from Mo, serenely taking us to a 6 wicket win and our 6th win out of 6.

The big games start now though. Toft, the 4s, Sale and Georgians are our next 4 games and will almost certainly be the best 4 teams we face this year. On we go...