First impression you get after looking at Barley's ground is that would always host high scoring games. Boundries were so small that if you asked a fielder to be 'saving two', he will be standing on the boundry. Outfiled was uneven making it difficult for the fielders to commit. So to make it an even contest, pitch was made extra spongy and soft. Even when it hadn't rained on Thursday and Friday, it looked as if the pitch had generously been watered just that day. It felt so soft that Tony Greig would have lost his keys(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXvnj8byB8g) in it if he just put them on the pitch. So it was quite understandable when Barley won the toss and put Cambourne to bat first.
Syed & Obaid opened the batting. As with every other batsman in the world, Syed was very unhappy when he was given LBW for 0 by Brian. TK & Obaid seemed to struggle against Barley's best bowler(Wakeel Shah) who had pace and was swinging it both ways. There were quite a lot of near misses but he was unfortunate not to get a wicket. Such was the quality of the bowling that as soon as his(Wakeel Shah) spell was over, both batsman relaxed to an extent where they gave away their wickets to the next bowler(Brian Symes). Brian continued his good spell and Cambourne looked in deep trouble with 82 for 6 in 24ov. While all pundits & critics were busy betting on Barley's win, they forgot how much Josh White likes to play in pressure conditions. Some in close acquaintance with Josh would even go as far as to say that Josh *only* performs in pressure situations. Whichever one was true, Cambourne needed a heroic effort to make any game out of it and heroic effort it was from Josh White. He was first involved in 63 run partnership with Brian and then 49run partnership with Liam and finished his inning at 50 not out by hitting a four of last ball of the innings. There were some speculations that Liam was able to play a blinder of an innings(27 of 24 balls) only because he had been partying all night long and thus didn't really know what he was doing. Cambourne capatin strongly rejected such specaulations.
With 195 on board, Cambourne looked in a much better position but with three strike bowlers(Paul, ATM, Callum), Cambourne still had to find their way to defend this total. James Turner was given the tough task to fill in for Paul Darrington and he did a brilliant job by giving only 16 runs of his 7 overs. It seemed like Barley's plan was to keep wickets to start with and then have a go at the later part. But some very tight bowling by JT, Syed, Brian & Abhi meant that Barley was only 63/1 in 22 overs. High required run rate meant that Barley batsman had to find boundry every over but they kept on losing wickets at regular invervals. Best bowler was Liam who started his spell in 30th over when Barley was 90/5 and took 4 wickets in span of 3 overs. Some suggested that Liam should probably party all night every Friday to repeat this form :)
Detailed scorecard available at below link.
http://cambournecc.play-cricket.com/website/results/3011171