Played at Springfield, Hackney

By Mark Dummett

When Old Fallopians weekend skipper David Sultanti announced that he was stepping down to concentrate on his batting, bowling and fielding, few imagined that his decision would have such a dramatic impact on his last game in charge.

To be fair, there is still much that the veteran all-rounder, who has organised the weekend matches for the past six years, needs to work on - he still only managed to score one run, and his first few deliveries were all over the place.

But Sultanti recovered strongly, and in the next few balls, first as bowler and then as fielder, killed off Chats Palace's last hopes of catching our slightly below-par total of 200.

Their middle order was putting together a strong fightback when first he clean bowled the dangerous Sam with a pitched up in-swinger.

Then, sensing blood, but not aware that he was the one about to shed it, he placed himself at close midwicket to the bowling of the ever-dependable John Shaw.

Austin absolutely twatted the ball, and Sultanti fell to the ground like he'd been hit in the nuts. Team-mates and opponents reacted with stunned silence when they realised he'd actually taken a blinder - with both, now blood-splattered, hands.

"It was quite easy actually," Sultanti may or may not have said afterwards in the pub. "Everything seemed to happen in slow motion."

Simon Hemelryk, who knows a thing or two diving but clearly not much about fishing, described Sultanti's leap as "fish-like."

The victory had earlier been set up by some fine batting at the top of the order by Justin Roy and Rafe Smallman. Austgin Hymas held things together lower down, and Hemelryk demonstrated that he is more than just a nurdler when he drove a sweet four off the toe of his bat though mid-off.

But the rest of the batting was a shambles, though that is partly because Chats oddly started with their weakest bowlers and end with their best.

We kept things tight with the ball, but until Sultanti's intervention half way through the Chats innings, things seemed to be drifting towards yet another nail-biter with our perrennial foes.

Not bad considering we ended the day with only eight and a half players. Robert Press had to rush off at half-time to rescue the American banking system, while Peter Frisby pulled a hamstring trying to get a quick single.

Fortunately Shaw keeps his late mum's walking stick in the boot of his car for just such an eventuality so Frisby. who had spent the Chat's innings throwing himself around at gully, was still able to hobble into the bar and buy us all a round.