Deciphering the surviving scribbled and tattered remnants of Ian Stone’s Skipper’s Report for the season, the fall-off in performance since the earlier 1990s continued. Against a similar list of opponents (apart from the ‘Odd Bods’, who only briefly figured as adversaries), there were just two wins and no less than thirteen defeats. Even in that more patient era, this record naturally provoked questions about the captaincy. The Mallards’ Board, the captain pointed out, had expressed its full backing for his continuing in his position…

With Colin Brown, Bob Wetherby and (after just four games) Neil Rhodes moving on to take their chances with other clubs, several Town & Country Planning postgrads were pressed into service among a total active membership of 23. Among the newcomers, Tony Crosby managed 117 runs from his 15 innings, to come second in the scorers behind Ian Morgan (112 runs for 12 times out, av. 13.15). There was not much to choose between the next highest run contributors, all of them old hands: Dick Buswell, Ian Stone, Geoff Davis and Neil Rhodes, each with around 60, followed closely by Trevor Wood, Nick Hayward and Simon Hayes. New recruits had not replaced those exiting, and with the stalwart Holmes only available for three games, the grand total of runs scored reached only 935, thus falling to 62.3 per innings, compared to 1220 (81.3) in the same number of games in 1993.

The overall bowling performance was similarly less impressive than a couple of years earlier: only 60 wickets were taken (av. 4 per innings) compared with 95 in 1993 (6.3 per innings). Stone (11-172 off 41 overs) and Hayes (10-85 off 29) headed the wicket takers; with Dave Welsh now retired, only Buswell and Morgan took more than five wickets. Phil Holmes, emboldened by his famous efforts with the ball the previous year, maintained that his 3-42 off 6 overs (av 14.00) qualified him to be listed second in the averages after Hayes (av. 8.50)… Of the regular bowlers, only Hayes and Wood confined batsmen to fewer than four runs per over.

Uniquely, the Awards Committee notes are available for the 1995 season. They still provide no coherent reason for Geoff Davis, with 58 runs and an average of 5.80, winning the Cross-Bat Award. That remains a conundrum calling out for further historical research. Serious discussion apparently focused on Gareth Taylor’s performance. He appears to have lost out because, after improving from a batting average of 1.60 to 2.89 in between 1993 and 1994, he had subsequently failed to build on that, returning the same average. Although Dick Buswell was in the running for the Mallards’ Ball, ‘for persisting in the traditional art of spin bowling’, newcomer Geoff Vigar narrowly gained the verdict. The Committee, it seems, was impressed by his marvellously symmetrical bowling statistics: 2 overs, 0 maidens, 20 runs, 0 wickets, runs per over 10). Entirely coincidentally, Geoff also took a catch off the captain’s bowling. Gareth Taylor was the (somewhat unlikely) winner of the Swoop Fielding Award, ‘for a stop in the field’… using his head. (Your chronicler recalls being criticised on that occasion, for looking to the falling fielder, rather than moving to take the catch as the ball was deflected from Gareth’s forehead.) The committee found it especially hard to find anyone qualifying for the Asti Spumante trophy, eventually inventing a pretext (now lost to history) for jointly awarding it to Nick Hayward and Dave Millan; and considered that Tony Crosby, who showed ‘unusual tenacity’ in turning out for all 15 games – nearly all dispiriting defeats – should have the Special Achievement Award.

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