The 1960 classic 'The Magnificant Seven' (vastly superior to the 2016 remake) was the inspiration for 'The Magnificant Nine' who went to Rayne representing the 3s. Normally, the 3s would fancy their chances against a team that hadn't won a game all season, but without their talismanic leader, Tim, who else was going to score all the runs & take all the catches. So, like Yul Brynner & Steve McQueen, the 3s faced challenging odds, with only 9 players, inlcuding 3 generations of the Wheeler/Smith family, Tom, dad Paul & grandad Reg.
John was entrusted with the captaincy for the day & was given all the relevant information for results, sporting marks, who could umpire, who could use a scorebook & postcode for the ground.
The game started well, as John won the toss & decided to bowl first (to avoid the game being over by 2pm).
Max & Danny opened up & both bowled well enough, but, with only 9 fielders it was hard to keep the runs down & Rayne were going along at 5 per over without any trouble. Harry replaced Max for a couple of overs, struggling to maintain consistency, so Tom came on. Danny found some rhythm & bowled the opener with a unplayable yorker. Not long after he dismissed the other opener with a superb inswinger. Totham spirits rose & we were back in the game. Tom found consistency difficult & Rayne continued to score quickly. However, some poor fielding, a dropped catch, too many no balls & big gaps where fielders would usually be placed did not help us. Danny finished his spell with a thrid wicket, bowled yet again to finish with 8-1-30-3 & was replaced by John just before drinks.
After the break the Rayne batsman began to take control, hitting any bad ball to the boundary. Although the bowling was a bit tighter there were still too many bad balls to allow Totham to build any pressure. Even when we bowled well we did not take any wickets & the temperature rose to make the afternoon more difficult.
At the end of the innings Max bowled out the dangerous batsman & Harry bowled a much better 2nd spell, so we finished quite well, not giving too many runs away, plus an excellent run out from DQ, saw Rayne reach 205-5 from their 40 overs.
Totham's turn to bat & The Magnificant Nine had a big task ahead of them, not repelling the Mexican bandits, but trying to score at 5 per over for the next couple of hours. John & Nick had a steady start with the bad ball dispatched for 4 & the good deliveries blocked out. But, as is usual, John played a rash shot & was caught out, soon followed by Nick, then immediatley by Paul. DQ & Danny put some resistance for a few overs, hitting a couple of boundaries, but we lost wickets at regular intervals & it didn't take long for Rayne to wrap the game up.
A huge thank you to the Wheeler/Smith family for helping out again & to all for putting in the effort that is needed with only 9 in the team.
I was sure that, in the film, the heroes win & the opponants are defeated. Sadly, not the case today & the scriptwriters need a different ending.
An interesting note - when Tim asked for availability for next weekend, there were responses immediately from many players. Obviously not put off too much by today?
