OSCC, 127-7, lost to Wolverton, 131-2, by 8 wickets
That went well.
Offley & Stopsley kicked off another league season with a less than narrow defeat as Jamie Cummins earned more nicknames than he pinched singles off the 42 deliveries he faced.
By the time the dust had settled, new opening batsman Jamie, a man who looks like the lovechild of serial killers Rose West and Dennis Nielsen had strangled the life out of his own innings and picked up the nicknames Pol Dot (another mass murderer), Cotton (as in Dot), Harry Dotter, the Waiting Wall, the Sponge (soaks up pressure and deliveries) and also acquired a mail-order bride in the shape of Way Ting.
And he genuinely thought the worst thing that was going to happen to him this weekend was at the Hawthorns.
10-man Offley won the toss and elected to bat on a bouncy track where 180 looked to be the minimum score and Cummins and Marc Ward set out to open the innings.
Ward walked out with his bat, Cummins went out with a shovel and trenching equipment, determined to dig in and take the shine off the ball.
Ward's desire to take the attack to the bowlers ensured Offley's run rate never dropped below 3 runs an over while Cummins' rigid blocking technique ensured it never rose above it.
Presented with a succession of scoring opportunities, Jamie shunned them all with a textbook defensive prod that invariably went straight back to the bowler.
He finally departed having made a doughty 2 from 42 deliveries.
They say Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness.
It could not have lasted as long as watching Jamie block 40 dots.
That brought in Steve Bexfield, a man who had made it clear from the start that his eyesight was failing, his shoes lacked sufficient grip and it was asking rather a lot of an elderly gentleman to bat at number three.
At drinks Offley had advanced to 60-1, Bexfield having matched Cummins' 2 while Ward had progressed into the 40s. Extras had chipped in with the balance.
180 - a run a ball for the rest of the way - still seemed within reach but five runs in the first five overs after drinks suggested that might not be the case.
Bexfield, slipping and sliding around the crease like a wrestler in a pit of jelly, finally got one off the square but was bowled shortly afterwards for 11 from 35 deliveries.
He marched back into the dressing room, ripped off the offending footwear and threw them at the bin.
In keeping with most of his innings he missed and hit Richie Barker instead.
Ward advanced to his second half-century in as many games this season and briefly threatened to lead Offley to a non-competitive but not quite so pitiful score in partnership with Dan Goord.
The partnership was broken when Ward slashed one to gully, a dismissal which brought Scott Boatwright hurrying from trap two like a greyhound who had eaten something that disagreed with him.
Seeing stars and sweating bullets after the sort of night that can be reasonably be characterised as "heavy," Boatwright played a couple of sparkling shots before he was undone by a delivery which kept a little low and skidded through his legside hack.
John Davis played one of the finest shots of his career before being cleaned up for 1.
Davis now has 64 runs from 31 innings for Offley so he is trending, admittedly no one knows in which direction.
Goord tried and died, smearing across the line in a bid for glory and the innings petered out in familiar fashion as Offley finished on 127-7, Roger Piepenstock ending the proceedings by playing an immaculate forward defensive to the lone delivery he faced off the final ball.
Offley needed early wickets to have any chance and needless to say they didn't get them.
A slow start from Wolverton gave way to an avalanche of runs as gaps in the field swiftly resembled vast expanses of empty real estate.
Barker finally landed a blow for freedom by bowling the Wolverton opener and then had a shout for LBW cruelly rejected by the umpire on the spurious grounds that it was only hitting middle stump and not all three, a decsion that left the bowler muttering something about the umpire being a beating hunt or something similar.
Piepenstock, a bowler whose skillset revolves around unleashing a barrage of liquorice allsorts at the batsman, struck in dramatic fashion as he bounced out the number three with a floaty leg stump half volley that was swept to fine leg into the waiting hands of Cummins.
However, there was to be no further success as Piepenstock's tasty treats were despatched to various parts of Buckinghamshire while Goord took just six balls to show it might be best not to rely on him as a regular bowler this year.
On the plus side the two points Offley took from the contest were enough to ensure they moved ahead of Harlington in the table, a state of affairs that owed something to the fact Harlington didn't actually play.
Despite the eight-wicket reversal, there are plenty of positives to be taken from the stuttering start to the season.
Two matches into the campaign and Offley have yet to cancel a game, yet to be bowled out and are still awaiting the first duck of the season.
And in 2025 it's good to see a cricketer inspiring a new nursery rhyme.
Hickory dickory dot
Jamie's not got one shot
He blocked all but two
Before one got through
Hickory dickory dot
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