For rest of the world, 8th of July was an ordinary Saturday. Not for Cambourne Cricket though. This day was for important for two reasons.
One, that CC Team 1 was playing against Histon, To understand the importnace of this game, you have to know the history a little bit. In 2015, Cambourne I won the league and so did Histon. There was a cup game planned which never happened. In 2016, both teams were in Senior 3 so there were 2 fixtures planned. 1st one got rained off while the second one was the final game of the season. There was rain forecast for most of the day & Syed had prepared Biryani for the tea. Emotions ran high in the game which was destined to be called off and when it did finish, most of the Histon team players left without a handshake and sour taste in the mouth. 1st game between these two teams in 2017 was also called off (http://cambournecc.play-cricket.com/website/results/3011144) but again had quite a lot of players on both ends worked up a little bit. So it was only logical to assume that both these teams will take this game quite seriously.
And second reasons was that for such high intensity and important fixture, Cambourne CC decided to give rest to Liam, James Turner, ATM, Paul D & Humberto and bring in the experience of Neil Thompson, tricky spin of Abhi Sharma and pace and bounce of Nathan Thompson. In the pre-toss discussion, Histon Captain mentioned that they are playing quite a strong batting side. Wicket looked quite flat and good to bat on so Histon naturally decided to bat first when they won the toss.
Callum opened the bowling with Syed and as he has proved over time, both of them were difficult to score runs of. Callum was very accurate changing his length & pace such that even Histon's opener(and captain David Ball) who has played tucker league seemed to struggle at times. On the other end Adam Dalby hit some beautiful shots including two straight sixes off Syed but you dont hit Syed for sixes, not twice anyway. You just don't. And if you do, there is every chance for you to be get trapped infront of the stumps to a quick off spin and thats what happened with Adam. Obaid grabbed a catch which was dying on him on point to give Nathan his first wicket for the 1st team. David Ball, on the other end looked quite comfortable albeit missing some cracking balls by Nathan and Abhi Sharma. After 20 overs, Histon were on 96/2 and with the wicket playing quite nicely, 240 looks to be on the card for Histon. Spin from both ends slowed own the run rate a little bit and after 30 overs Histon were on 139/4 with TK & Abhi getting 1 wicket each with David(opener) still on the crease. Syed resumed his spell and bowled David of the last ball off his spell when he was on 71. Some tight bowling by Callum & Nathan really slowed down the run rate with wickets coming at regular intervals and Histon finished on 188 in 43 overs for 10 wickets. Cambourne's captain was quite happy with the bowling performance as Histon was about 20 runs short of the par score.
Histon open their bowling with a very guile and cunning medium pace Cameron who got Ryan & Humberto out cheaply last time we played with them. Cambourne captain had an aggressive plan to counter the bowler and thus TK & Khurram(who scored 44 not out in last inning against Histon). That plan back fired big time when Cameron got 4 top wickets(TK, Obaid, Khurram & Josh) for not that many. He ended up his spell with 4 wickets for 22 in his allotted 9 and Cambourne 1's found themselves in a bit of a bother when they were reduced for 85/5 in 24 overs which got Callum & Syed together on the crease. While Callum was batting superbly, Syed looked a bit rusty to start of with and gave an easy catch to mid-on when he was on 1 but it was dropped. Crowd witnessed a different Syed after that catch drop and batted more responsibly. This partnership lasted till 36th over where a couple of quick doubles left Callum a bit tired and he chipped one to short mid on when score was on 143. Apart from that shot, Callum's inning was quite flawless and he played pretty well for his 32. Nathan joined Syed on the crease but unfortunately got run-out because of miscommunication in the next over. Neil; with all his experience; joined in 38th over with Cambourne to get another 50 runs in last 7 overs. Even when Syed was looking quite good at that time, it looked like a massive uphill task to get 50 runs in 7 overs with last pair on the crease.It wasn't lack of confidence; we were told later by Cambourne Captain; but rather the practical approach where Cambourne Captain umpiring at square leg was seen reminding Syed to get to atleast 160 to get that extra bonus point to which Syed returned a glaring look as if to say, skip! I am better than that.
What followed later was unbelievable. It was Syed's bat doing the talk and every time ball vanished beyond the boundry it was Neil's calm and assuring demeanor giving direction to Syed's flare. There was a bit of silence when Syed hit the winning boundry on 2nd ball of last over but as soon as everybody realized the remarkable feat that has been achieved, Cambourne team ran to the pitch screaming with joy.
Someone twitted after the Champions trophy 2017 along the lines of 'In a parallel universe, Bumrah didn't bowl a no-ball and got Fakhar out when he was on 3. India went on to won that match quite comfortably' . In that same universe, Syed got out on 1 as well and Histon secured 20 winning points as well. In this world, however ....

Detailed scorecard at http://cambournecc.play-cricket.com/website/results/3011177