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 !