VW Day

 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 middle of an Angolan minefield.

Wardy Wins The Toss

Offley took the field with ten men, Tom Harris delayed en route from his Wandsworth chateau after being caught up in the middle of London's Pride celebrations.

In his absence the visitors got off to something of a flyer as Offley's bowlers took a little time to loosen up and were offered little support from a fielding unit either unable or unwilling to cope with the ball bouncing off the rutted surface of the so-called outfield.

Syed Shah made the breakthrough courtesy of an excellent catch by Dan Goord at mid off. 

Last week Goord dropped a softly struck miscued sitter at cover when he erroneously thought it had been middled and attempted to take evasive action before kicking it to the ground. 

This time he took a swirling steepler that he never looked like dropping - as Steve Denton stood at mid on thanking his lucky stars that Ward had just swapped their fielding positions.

Despite the breakthrough the boundaries continued to flow. Denton found the edge of the other opener who was simply delighted to seize the chance to walk and escape the terror track.

The big breakthrough came courtesy of an returning Offley folk hero.

Darren Lunney may be a decorator by trade but he is an artist at heart and regards the 22 yards of turf as the canvas on which to paint his masterpieces, each delivery a deft stroke of the brush that is his left arm, working towards the single goal of expelling the batter like an undesirable trespasser at his private gallery.

With one elegant flick of the wrist, Lunney trapped the boundary-happy Saqib LBW for 41 to make it 74-3 and from there the innings never really recoverd its early momentum.

All six bowlers used picked up wickets, two apiece for Syed, Lunney, Mo and Jamie Cummins and one each for Denton and Richie Barker.

It was part of extended celebrations for birthday boy Cummins who thoroughly enjoyed his day out. 

As we all know, Jamie fancies himself to be a serious pace bowler and is constantly experimenting with his variety of short-pitched deliveries that consistently leave batters unsure whether to try and smash for four or six.

Consequently it came as genuine satisfaction to his teammates to see him expertly exploit the favourable conditions and finally get to grip with a couple of bouncers.

After a rocky start where it looked as though he'd left his gloves at home and brought along his cymbals instead, Scott Boatwright benefited from some clever reverse psychology from the slips and took three catches behind the stumps. 

It was an impressive performance by the keeper, perhaps made even more impressive by the fact he didn't reinjure his delicate calf muscle celebrating any of them.

Additionally, Cummins claimed a typical fast bowler's wicket as Mo careered around the boundary to take a fantastic sliding catch at long off.

After a wayward opening spell toiling up the hill, Mo finally got the chance to bowl down the slope at Lilley. He responded with a ferocious burst of fast bowling that has in all likelihood resulted in the bottom of the hill being renamed as the Syed Shah End.

The innings ended in a flurry of wickets, the last four tumbling for just six runs, including one that saw Barker take his 200th catch for the club, an expertly judged dismissal at point where he was unable to get out of the way.

A short while later he was unable to get out of the way of a short pitched delivery and lobbed a simple catch leaving Ward and Goord to carry on the quest for victory.

Both played some eye-catching shots, most notably Ward's off drive for six, before Goord simply played an effortless shot that was caught, chipping it with expert precision to the only man within 40 yards on the leg side.

Experienced Goord-watchers will recognise this as a textbook dismissal.

Boatwright walked to the wicket and helped Ward add a decisive 52 runs that went a long way to settling the contest.

After a series of sumptuous off drives, the captain reached his fourth half-century of the season before gloving his next ball to the keeper which brought Harris to the crease with 46 required for victory and the visitors sniffing a faint chance of victory.

Blessed with a warm-up routine that includes shoulder-swinging, knee-flexing, shadow strokes and eye exercises, Harris makes his entrance with a pomp and circumstance that resembles a heavyweight boxer's ring walk.

He makes Lunney's range of pre-batting stretches look both outdated and understated.

To watch Harris bat is like watching a master chef in action.

He has all the recipes - in this case the shots - the checked trousers, the hat and knows how to expertly blend the ingredients.

Unfortunately, as his ability to hit the ball for his first 15 deliveries showed, he is that rare case of a master chef who is unable to turn on the oven.

After much playing and missing - maybe he'd just caught the bug of swishing and swaying at Pride - Harris finally located the middle of the bat and produced some impressive boundaries on his way to an unbeaten 18.

At the other end Boatwright, who is often cursed by the propensoty to play a really shit shot when looking really good, made a chanceless 38 not out to see his team to victory.

So Wardy finally gets the win he has chased for so long, a victory that had previously evaded him for days, months and years.

It lifts Offley up to sixth in the table at the halfway stage of the season, a mere 54 points off the promotion places.

Admittedly we're only 20 points above the drop zone but to be able to reach out and almost taste the promised land of midtable obscurity is a massive step in the right direction for a team that has taken 135 points from the past six matches, a far cry from the shambolic state of affairs that had us mired on 25 point after three games in the wake of the Bus Wanka debacle at Chorleywood.

Thumbs up.