<p>The Mogs anticipated the Chipstead and Coulsdon fixture with even more gusto than a normal game as the match was preceded by a universal invitation to the Freeland household. Our host and his wife reminded your correspondent of Chaucer's Franklin for "it snowed in his house of meat and drink and alle dainties that men could bethink". The team, collected Mog luminaries and children all alike were extremely well fed and watered by the Freeland barbecue and a bottomless icy barrel from which chilled alcohol flowed with miraculous continuity.</p>
<p>The players reluctantly left this banquet and headed up to the ground in fantastic late summer conditions, where the opposition, having won the toss, elected to bat in a limited overs game. The Mogs opened with Rice and Abbott. The former, still in the first stages of youth, and unaffected by our feasting, fired an array of fast and furious deliveries which tested the batsmen and your correspondent behind the stumps though he was not equal to the challenge and conceded a distressing number of byes! Meanwhile Abbott, like a huge supertanker, powered in up the hill, not laden with a million barrels of Arabian crude, but more a number of glasses of rum and delivered a probing and inquisitive spell which the batsmen found very hard to dispatch. The openers both had dominating spells and returned 2-42 for Rice and a miserly 3-27 for Abbott at the end of their 8 overs. </p>
<p>The Captain brought in a number of other bowlers but whilst it is fair to say that no-one was notably punished by the batsmen only the Vice Captain was successful in wicket taking terms and returned a credible 30-2. In the field the most notable event was an astonishing one handed catch from Honeyfield who plucked a rocketing edge from the air after it had passed him! At the end of their 40 overs Chipstead were 205-7, having passed the vital 200 mark but with a score that our local man, Jamie Freeland, thought was perhaps a little low given the depth of the Mogs' batting.</p>
<p>The Mogs came out to bat, at roughly the same time as England, playing to go 2-1 up in the Ashes series, set out to overhaul Australia's 128. It is fair to say that the rest of the afternoon was a vastly tenser affair for batsmen and fielders alike as the man next in was distracted by the knowledge of what had been happening at Trent Bridge and the fielders passed around in a rapid series of Chinese whispers the latest scores as batsmen came in or spectators put their hands to their heads as they listened to the radio. Alan Lewis' car became a kind of focal point as fretful Mogs clustered anxiously around it hardly bearing to listen to England's painful progress to the target.</p>
<p>England and the Mogs batted in the reverse fashion, whilst Trescothick and Strauss appeared to be making easy progress towards the target the Mogs were becalmed and stood at a slightly perilous 64-3 after 20 overs. The situation could have been far worse but for the curse of your correspondent's gloves which, having been lent to Chipstead's keeper, dropped three sitters! The luckless fellow realising he was doomed removed his keeping gear and went out to the boundary to field. At this stage, as England started to stutter alarmingly in their pursuit, the Mogs picked up the pace. The most notable contributors to this were the twin colossuses of Hewitt and Abbott who scored 88 and 43 not out respectively. The Captain launched a couple of enormous sixes into a neighbouring county before falling whilst Abbott played with Caribbean flair and these two were primarily responsible for bringing the Mogs home to victory a few minutes after the entire ground had collectively celebrated and sighed with relief at England's triumph.</p>
<p>It being a Bank Holiday the Curry Secretary made a curry call and a goodly number of Mogs players and spectators descended upon Reigate before ending up in the clement climes of the "Golden Curry" where there was much merriment and libation at the day's two wins.</p>
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