By John Thompson

After almost a month of waiting the Risinghurst 1st XI finally made its Cherwell League debut and duly thrashed Garsington and Cowley 2nd’s.  We were put in to bat, and conditions were tricky early on as the ball moved around in the air.  Martin was first to go for 10 as we put on 24 for the first wicket.  This brought in Sandeep to join Saurabh and the latter dominated the early stages of their partnership with characteristic powerful drives and cuts.  He reached his half century as the partnership approached 100, and went for 60 soon after.

Mansour played some aggressive shots but made only 11 before he was stumped.  Rakesh now came in and with Sandeep having passed 50 they upped the pace and put on 100 in a little over 12 overs, with Rakesh then passing his half century.  All eyes were now on Sandeep as he edged towards his ton, with one huge stroke of luck as he was dropped on 93 he progressed in singles until he became our first Cherwell League centurion in his first innings for 18 months !  Both were dismissed in quick succession and it took Romio and Sam to take us to 300 which we duly did in the final over before a flurry of wickets saw us post a fine 302-9.

The G&C innings opened with a near run out first ball, but then a classic Rakesh dismissal to the last ball of the over as he bowled their opener with a ball that pitched leg and swung to hit off.  He did the same with a well-disguised slower ball a handful of overs later to leave their reply in tatters.  Martin soon chipped in with two quick wickets and a run out orchestrated by Romio meant half the G&C team were out with the total barely over 50.  The rest of the innings meandered on with JT and Anand picking up a couple of wickets apiece until Martin returned to land the final blow leaving us victors by a massive 183 runs and full points.