OSCC, 162-8, beat Chorleywood, 127 all out, by 35 runs & OSCC, 122 all out, lost to Wolverton, 123-7, by three wickets Offley enjoyed a mixed weekend, winning one and losing one, enduring batting collapses and sparking them, moving closer to the sunlit uplands of midtable obscurity in one league and drawing ever closer to the drop in the other. Perhaps the only constant across the weekend was Darren Lunney's fielding off his own bowling. To drop one return catch might be considered unlucky.  To spill two unfortunate.  To shell three (all off the same batsman) reckless. And to extend the streak to four the next day might simply be regarded as clear evidence that Darren has penises for fingers. Marc Ward lost the toss and Offley were invited to bat first on their fifth trip of the year to the Lilley Cabbage Patch. (Incidentally we do have a friendly scheduled at Lilley for September; good seats are still available.) Ward and Jamie Cummins reprised their opening partner...

  OSCC, 24 (Twenty-four) all out, lost to Ampthill 28-3, by seven wickets Vietnam. You weren't there, man. You don't know! Across the United States grizzled veterans sit in bars and legion halls sipping Wild Turkey and Jack Daniel's and recount the horrors of the Tet Offensive, Khe Sanh and the fall of Saigon. Many years from now, the shattered remnant of Jamie Cummins' Dark Command may recall their trip to Ampthill with similar dread. It started well enough for the debutant captain who won the toss and elected to bat first on a good deck on a hot day. What happened over the next 11 overs was something that had not been seen in the 28 years of the club's sometimes illustrious and occasionally infamous history. This was infamy at its most infamous. With the club's all-time leading run scorer, Steve Bexfield, nowhere to be seen, absent either due to a miscommunication or because he was late as usual, saw the scorebaord from the road and thought sod this for a game...

OSCC, 99 all out, lost to Old Albanians, 202 all out, by 103 runs Marc Ward's dreams of making it consecutive victories went up in smoke the moment he lost the toss and condemned Offley to field in 30 degree heat at Lilley. Actually field is perhaps a slightly strange term to use in reference to spending hours lumbering about on a surface that makes rusty corrugated iron resemble silk. Faced by opponents who were younger, fitter and basically miles better, there could be only one outcome - the cricketing equivalent of a spit-roast in a Turkish sauna. Things began brightly enough with the news that Roger Piepenstock hadn't arrived by the time the game began. Roger duly arrived after one ball had been bowled and things duly went so shit. The visiting openers got off to a fast start, one that was only arrested when an errant Jamie Cummins full toss found a leading edge and Mark Kirkman took an excellent catch at midwicket. Unfortunately that didn't really do a lot to stem the ...

  O SCC, 113-8, lost to MK Warriors, 171-8, by 58 runs Since the dawn of time man has sought to take on fresh challenges and scale new heights. Man has walked on the moon. Everest has been conquered. The 10-second barrier for the 100 metres has been shattered. Americans elected a massive orange twat as President.  Twice. Britain elected a gormless, unprincipled and spineless dipshit as Prime Minister.  So far only once but let's see where we are in another four years. Marc Ward won a game as captain. And yet as Sinead O'Connor might have put it, nothing compares 2 u, John Davis, on finally joining the Offley Double Figures Club (DFC) at just the 38th time of asking. Davis reeled off a breathtaking series of strokes as he scored a sublime 13 to lift his career average up to 2.378378378. Mysteriously and unfairly spurned as a bowler of late by a succession of captains, Davis has grabbed the opportunity to reinvent himself as a stoical middle order bastion of blockage. On a ...

 OSCC, 160-3, beat Luton Town & Indians, 157 all out, by seven wickets And so finally it came to pass. Having assumed the captaincy in February 2024 and toiled through a season and a half of heart-sapping, soul-crushing, spirit-breaking defeats - and the Christians give it big licks because Jesus went camping for 40 days and 40 nights - Marc Ward experienced his first win as captain. Leading from the front, Ward top-scored on a day where hope finally triumphed over experience and ten of eleven players either contributed runs or wickets to the cause. The eleventh, Roger Piepenstock, contributed his IT expertise to the event, overseeing his beloved iPad going wrong. Again. The Ideal Ashes With the visitors nervously inspecting the craters and crevices to be found on the Lilley length, a delighted Ward won the toss and opted to bowl. The last time anyone looked quite so happy on a potentially lethal surface was when Princess Diana was posing cheerfully for the cameras in the middl...