After a good night's sleep (finally) its an 8:00am breakfast. Knowing the schedule for the day I make sure I load up well on the bacon, eggs, sausages, toast etc. Its then a 10:00am team meeting where Skipper Stirling informs us about the "political" situation regarding the cancellation of the official Australian touring party and the rationale behind the group that is now touring.

Today we are playing the Hambledon Cricket Club . The origin of the club, based near the village of Hambledon in rural Hampshire, is unclear but it had certainly been founded by 1768.
By the late 1770s it was the foremost cricket club in England.

 After the one hour drive to the Cricket Club we have a quick look at the ground and then adjourn to the Bat & Ball Inn (see my entry on 10th) where some order a quick lunch. A cappacino is sufficient for me.   Back to the ground and into our warmups ready for a 1:00pm start. Its a 40 over game today with retire-and-recycle at 40 runs. Twelve per side although only 11 can bat.

Ron Axelby is skipper for the day and is off to a great start.   Late for the team photo and then we start off with all 12 players on the field for the first couple of overs before the scorers bring it to his attention.   We do well to restrict Hambledon to 6/173 after it looked likely that they would post over 200 at one stage.   I didn't do any keeping today but plenty of boundary riding so the legs will probably feel it tomorrow .   The local club puts on a huge spread for afternoon tea and it takes all my willpower to restrict myself to just a solitary sandwich and a piece of fruit.

I open the batting and after a couple of early wickets share a 41 run partnership with Murray Harrison. We ran 5 lots of 3's during this partnership - 3*3s coming off my bat. Damn, I wish I could hit the ball harder!   The opening bowlers were your typicall English canny old buggers who put the ball on the spot and the track is playing so low that we are regularly digging the ball out very late. I eventually cop one that bounces like a tennis ball off a very full length and my attempted drive just lobs off the shoulder of the bat very slowly to first slip.   Out for 27 off 53 balls.   At this stage we are 3/73 off 19 overs and well in the game.

It gets tight when we lose 3 quick wickets in the 140's and it finally comes down to us needing 23 runs off the last 3 overs and 8 off the last . James Martin (25* off 14 balls) sees us home with 3 balls to spare.   Murray Harrison is our top scorer with 40 retired. A great game enjoyed by everyone. Its just amazing to think we are playing at a club where they were playing cricket 25 years before Australia was even discovered.

The locals put on a "Mexican" feast for us - curry chicken, chilli con carne and vegetable curry - I suppose it could be called Mexican.   Anyway, no need to hold back now. I fill my plate and with Chappy volunteering to drive the car back I can even have a drink or two.   We settled in to watch the World Cup Final but got bored by half time and decided to head off home. After all it is about 9:30 by now.

Chappy still hasn't got his head around the indicators on the left of the steering wheel instead of the right and to our great amusement cleans the windscreen about a dozen times on the way home.   And I wont even mention the burnt clutch.   Anyway we are tucked up in bed just after 11:00pm - ready for another big game tomorrow at Longparish.