The Archives found themselves a man short (another demonstration of the Director’s failing faculties, critics murmured: it can only be a matter of time before the backroom boys line up a Kamala Harris-style replacement). As a result, we wondered when would be the best time to cross the bridge of whether to ask Tratalos to bowl. “When we come to it”, soothed the consensus.

The 10-man Archives team batted first and Tan and Pickford got off to the most solid of starts. Although Darren was dropped at least twice and Will’s outing was less boundary-filled than usual (a tribute to the fact that almost all the Ashfordians can bowl effectively), both retired in close proximity with the score at about 50. Darren’s knock featured the first of the Archives' three 6s. Musale, his father watching on proudly, wasted no time in pressing the accelerator and retiring in a dozen balls or so, finishing with his own lusty blow for 6. Hill reached his season-best score of 8, before being bowled by the ultimate Taverner’s Taverner, Dave Cavanagh, who then also accounted for Tratalos, also clean bowled for a season’s worst (I suspect) score of 1. Bajpai was given out caught behind to a ball that did not appear to passed anywhere near his bat.

Bennett and Kerr came together post-wobble and with the need to move the score along a little (solid platforms or otherwise, the rate had not been exactly incendiary). Only bowlers 6 and 8 took much tap for Ashford, with Bennett one beneficiary, hitting the last 6 of the Archives innings. But no sooner were we off the leash, than we were called to heel again, the last 4 overs going for a cumulative total of only 14 runs. Bennett was out for 19, swinging for the fence, while Kerr and Vikas saw the innings to a conclusion for a score of 130.

A NOTE ABOUT THE SCORE: I say 130. However, one hastily scribbled calculation on the scorebook recorded 121. Moreover, another recalculation done for the purposes of this match report comes to 127. Questions might have been asked if the Ashford reply had turned out differently [A NOTE ABOUT THE NOTE ABOUT THE SCORE: Somewhere, noting that the Director was looking after the scorebook, the Backroom Boys put in calls to contenders for a new Director. One curious feature of the Archives innings was the Ashford insistence – from about over 15 – that they had bowled one more over than they had. The increasingly gas-lit Director came to believe that he had, in fact, failed to score an entire over, until the Dispute of the Missing Over was ultimately resolved in his favour].

The reply was, to some extent, a government of all the Archives talents as everyone was ultimately called upon to do his bit. It fell to poor Hill (not for the first time this season) to be the sacrificial lamb bowling to the opposition’s best hitters, but even that was for the best as Francois ended up retiring for 20, with a six, rather than the 23 or 25 that might have been his wish. Rarely can an Archives bowler have bowled a more courageous second over after the punishment meted out to Hill’s first.

That retirement aside, though, two things distinguished the Ashford reply from the Archives time in the middle: (a) no one else retired and (b) the Archives generally held their catches: Bennett even took one excellent one-handed catch at short mid-wicket, only for it to be struck off by the first-ball rule. Only a potential finger-breaker to Hill went down, while a younger Director might have been lighter on his feet to reach one that dropped short of him (more mutterings from the men in smoke-filled rooms).

A sharp run-out by Tratalos off the bowling of Tan, as well as two stumpings by the same player (off Pickford and Kerr), all combined with excellent bowling by Musale (one wicket) and Bajpai (two wickets, one excellently caught in the deep as a big hitter hit big off the wrong bowler and to the wrong fielder, the excellent Tan). One more run out for Jamie and a sharp c&b for Pickford, seemed to have the game won. The Tratalos love of a stumping was much in evidence as young Lewis Seymour (later to be named Ashford MOTM) was the victim of several dozen attempts by the Archives gloveman. The desire not to bowl was clearly driving him on.

And this problem persisted: there was time for the last pair to get the remaining runs, with the final 4 overs to be split between the Director (never known for his death-bowling prowess, even before concerns about his cognitive abilities started to emerge) and Tratalos, who had not bowled this summer. Needing 8-ish an over off the last 4 overs, and with the always excellent Seymour looking ominous for Ashford, the two bowlers rallied to the flag: leaking only 5 runs off each of the first three of their quartet. With 12-ish needed off the last over, Tratalos put the issue to bed: Tan, deputising behind the stumps, made no mistake with a looping top edge off the first ball. Ashford fell somewhere between 5 and 15 runs short.

How Ashford chose between Musale, Tratalos, Tan, Kerr, Bennett and Pickford for MOTM is beyond this chronicler, but in the event it was Darren who got the nod.