Mallards arrived on a sunny evening at the delightful Maiden Castle Ground. As the Mallards did not have all their batsmen present it was agreed between the Skips, Latif and Pat Card that Mallards could bat first. The Durham Skip however insisted on having a  ‘ceremonial toss’ as he wanted to keep up his good tossing record of 7 in a row. For the record the Durham Skip won the ‘ceremonial toss’.

Mallards opened with Ankush and Hamid. The Durham opening bowling attack was Theo McCarthy and Jemina Martin . There was an unusual cautious start from the Mallards openers largely down to the good bowling of Durham’s McCarthy. The pressure was telling as Hamid was out for 7 lbw to Martin. Pradeep joined Ankush and both batsmen after a slow start and helped by a few dropped chances (as
mentioned in the scorebook !) then started to find the boundaries on a very large outfield. After a great partnership both batsmen retired in quick succession (Ankush 30 and Pradeep on 31) . Ankush running off the field to be with his gorgeous new puppy and the Mallards  adopted mascot Baloo.

McCarthy ended his spell with figures of 0-14 off 4 overs and Martin finished with figures of 1-27 off 4 overs. Mallards next batter Sharukh was out for 0 to the new bowler Ian Boothroyd . At the other end ‘The Prof’ Nigel Metcalfe replaced Martin. For the Mallards the new batsmen AJ and Abbas set about the Durham attack with vigour making the Maiden Castle ground look small with a flurry of boundaries. In particular they took a liking to ‘The Prof’ who finished with figures of 0-47 off 4 overs , Boothroyd finishing his spell with figures of 1-32 off 4 overs. Both AJ and Abbass quickly reached excellent retirements on 30 not out. Latif was next in and out without troubling the score. Col sporting a lovely ‘shiner’ was then out for lbw for 4. The returning Nish and Tony C finished on 4 not out and 1 not out respectively. The final 2 Durham bowlers of Pat Card and Guy Paxman finished on figures of 1-17 and 1-5 both off 2 overs. Mallards finished on a very good total of 148. However Mallards knew they would need to bowl and field well on a big ground with a quick outfield.

The Durham opening batsmen Hall and Paxman made a steady start. The Mallards opening bowlers Tony C and Sharukh made a steady start. The Mallards from the start fielded like hungry tigers which cannot always be applied. Sharukh made the breakthrough having Hall caught by Abbas for 27. Paxman retired on 31. Tony C finished his good spell with 0-23 off 4 overs ( He also throughout the Durham innings provided good intel on each Durham batter!) Sharukh finished his fiery spell of 1-17 off 3 overs . The new Durham batters were Malik and McCarthy.

For Mallards Nish replaced Tony C and Pradeep replaced Sharukh. Nish bowled well on his long overdue return however slightly tired in his last over finishing on a very credible 0-26 off 3 overs. Pradeep bowled very miserly and finished with great figures of 0-13 off 3 overs . Skip Latif replaced Pradeep and immediately the Durham batters tried to hit him into the River Wear as a result McCarthy was stumped for 4 and next batsmen Mitchell was stumped for 11, in addition Malik was out for 21 after using various parts of his body to try and hit the ball during his innings. A mention here to young Col who was very nimble with his 2 stumpings despite his vision
being affected with a shiner on his right eye. AJ replaced Nish from the other end. Latif finished with very good figures of 3-15 off 3 overs and AJ good figures of 0-12 off 2 overs. Durham were well behind the scoring rate. Abbas bowled the penultimate over for 4 runs. It was left to the death over specialist Stiggy to bowl the last over . Stiggy’s control of his famous ‘variable length’ bagged him a wicket off his 2nd ball (Root for 7) and he closed out the innings with 1-11. Durham finished on 123 with Card 9 not out and Martin 5 not out.

Mallards had won again with a great all round performance.

A lovely evening, another win for the mighty Mallards in a game played in good spirits. We all left disappearing into the Durham sunset with a skip and a jump !

The journey to Durham was clearly challenging for some of the Mallards since not all had arrived by the time of the first ball. So Lee Latif relieved Stig of the captaincy (or was it Stig was relieved not to captain?), Durham Staff took to the field and Ankush and Hamid walked out to bat.

The wicket was dry and hard and the first over bowled by Theo was a lively maiden as Ankush took time to adjust to the pace and bounce. Hamid faced the second over and he promptly swatted a no-ball from Jemima to the boundary. However, the last ball of that over Hamid mistimed – oops – as another sweep took a top edge…but fortunately it looped over the head of the ‘keeper for a single: a potential catch narrowly averted. The batsmen changed ends. Hamid defended Theo’s next over, scoring two on the last ball, and then Ankush was next to face Jemima. A good line and length, Ankush stepped confidently forward, and – bang – he hit the ball smartly to long-on… straight into the arms of Ian B. Oh no!

Oh yes! Ian dropped it!… much to the relief of Ankush who went on to score boundaries on each of the next three balls, followed by ‘only’ a single on the last. Spectating Mallards breathed a collective sigh of relief: the master blaster was back on form. This was confirmed when Ankush scored a boundary and two twos off Theo’s third over. Just to show that Jemima was not downhearted by missing out on her first wicket, she went and yorked Hamid LBW in her next delivery. He tramped off for an untypical 7, bringing Pradeep to the wicket. He, at first, had difficulty facing Jemima’s good line and nagging length on an awkward pitch but eventually he settled and so the Mallards pair began to assert their dominance. The bowling changed as Nigel and Ian came on but they could only watch an accelerating flow of runs. Boundary followed boundary until Ankush retired on a maximum 30. Shahrukh, guesting for the Mallards, took his place, tried to emulate his departing colleague and thus smacked his first ball from Ian into the covers, only to see it caught nicely by Guy. Out for a duck. The Mallards are not so-named without reason!

Ajay was next in and the tone of the innings was re-established. Some elegant and effective stroke play continued as first Pradeep retired on 30 then, as new man Abbas joined him, Ajay despatched a huge six and a number of fours to reach his maximum also. The bowling changed but Abbas continued the battering. Lee Latif came and went quickly – another duck – bowled by Durham captain Pat, and Nishal walked out to bat next, until Abbas eventually retired. He was replaced by Colin as Guy came on to bowl, joined by Theo for his fourth. In the final over, Colin (much to his disgust) was given out on 4, LBW to Guy with your correspondent/umpire/sometime Durham player coming out to drive a single off the penultimate ball.
After twenty overs, the Mallards had gained 148 for four. An impressive total, with four batsmen reaching maximums.
Durham batsmen, Will Hall and Guy Paxman, took to the crease to face the opening Mallards attack, yours truly and Shahrukh. They batted resolutely – the game was tightly contested. Runs were coming, if maybe not quite so fast in this innings. Will had scored 27 with a couple of boundaries off your correspondent and an impressive six off Shahrukh until he lifted another off the same bowler to be caught at long-on. Durham were one down for 39 in the sixth over.

Raj was next in. Both batsmen hit out steadily, patiently, although with Will gone, runs were not coming quite so quickly. Pradeep came on to bowl and then Nish as Guy reached 31 to retire. Theo replaced him. He pulled an impressive boundary off Nish but that brought a bowling change and thus Lee Latif into action – the most tantalising, frustrating and devastating of the Mallards attack. Theo was stumped off one bewitching donkey-drop, bringing Jolyon to the crease. Slow bowling brought a slowing run-rate and Durham tried to take one run more than they should – Raj failing to make his ground with Jolyon calling for a quick single. He was run out on 21; Durham were 97 for three in the 16 th over. Durham’s wicket keeper Rich Root joined Jolyon at the crease but Lee was not finished yet. Another rush of blood to the head, galloping down to hoist another donkey-drop, it only resulted in a stumping again as ‘keeper Colin removed the bails and Jolyon had to tramp off, having scored 11. Poppy Martin, making her debut for Durham, was next to face. Lee was replaced by Ajay. He bowled at pace but Rich and Poppy kept him at bay, also Abbas, scoring twos and singles until the last over when Stig came on to finally see Durham off. Rich promptly gave a catch to bring Pat to the crease but despite a couple of boundaries the Mallards total was never in threat – Durham finished with 123 for 5.

The flight of the Mallards continues!