🗓️ 17 Aug – 23 Aug 1889 · 1889 — 1 match
🧢 1st XIv ? · HomeformLLLLLWednesday last saw us play host to the visitors, and win the toss I did, opting to bat first — the sort of decision that looks either shrewd or daft depending entirely on what follows, but I stand by it still. The lads settled in, and while wickets fell around him, M A Atkins carried his bat for a splendid 32 not out, the innings' backbone and then some. It wasn't the most fluent of totals we posted, if I'm honest, but there was enough there to make a match of it.
Out in the field we set about defending what we had, and found our opposite number in similarly obdurate mood — A E Chambers matched Atkins run for run with his own unbeaten 32, refusing all invitations to depart. F M Atkins did what he could with the ball, picking up two for the umpires' pencil to note, ably supported by F S W Cornwallis chipping in with one of his own. Between them they kept us in the contest, even if the finishing touch eluded us.
There was a happy footnote amid the toil: young Jack Fryer's ten runs eased him past M A Atkins and up to thirteenth on the club's all-time run-scoring ledger, a nice bit of history quietly made. In the end neither side could force the door open, and honours were shared. A draw, then — not the stuff of legend, but an afternoon of good, honest cricket, and I'll take that.