Mullion take the title

Before you read about the exploits of the Mullion senior sides, you should all be upstanding to the Under 11s as on Friday evening they won their first match of the season.

With the coaches insisting that the boys fully understand from an early age that when Mullion meets Helston at cricket, Mullion should win. The final scores do not matter other to say that in a match played with great spirit and in the end nearly total darkness the two sides showed that in this part of Cornwall, the future of cricket is in safe hands.

On Saturday morning, Mullion 1s skipper Jim took the phone call from Gulval. "Is the match on"? "Oh yes". Says Jim. With Chacewater only 12 points behind, Mullion needed only seven to claim the Division 5 West crown. Six points for a cancelled match would be not good enough if Chacewater were to play and get a full 20. It was then that Gulaval sprang the surprise as they told us they could not get a side together and would have to concede the match. 20 points for Mullion and the party commenced.

At 2am on Sunday morning a few bleary (or should I say beary) souls realised that they would need to sober up by next Saturday as there was the important task of travelling to Wadebridge and take on St Minver to decide the County Champions.

As for Mullion 2s, well it was a dark and stormy morning - rain, whipped into a horizontal frenzy by a strong south-westerly (it may even have been a north-easterly) hammered against the window. On the A30 and all roads leading to it, the annual emmet easterly migration was well under way. Meanwhile in an enclave of south-west Cornwall a small, but dedicated band of cricketers gathered anxiously in the vicinity of their telephones, hoping against hope that it wouldn't ring. Cricket? In this weather? Whatever ...

But, as games throughout the rest of the county were dropping like flies, for Mullion 2s the call when it came was more surprising - "the game is still on - see you at Newquay". So dutifully armed with bats pads, wetsuits and surfboards off we went.

Events over the past two weeks had revived Mullion's chance of grabbing the 2nd promotion spot, however it would need (a) the weather to be on our side (ie cause St. Ives' game to be cancelled - which it was) and (b) for Mullion to give Newquay (the champions) a sound thrashing on their own turf.

Having had a season to practise, skipper Mark Johnson proved he'd got the hang of the tossing business and called correctly. The home side should have batted first. It was then that the skipper broke the news that a certain Mr H had taken it upon himself to decide that the game was off and hadn't turned up - nor was he going to. In taking such unilateral action, he not only deprived Mullion of a fine opening bowler, but it also meant that Mullion had to face their most important game of the season with only 10 not very happy men.

With a late start due to the inclement conditions, the captains agreed to play a 40 over match instead of the normal 48 overs. Ian "Buddha" Laity and Mark "Facilities" Johnson opened the bowling but despite the ball beating the bat on several occasions the edge was not found. However they say that catches win matches, and the Newquay openers rode their luck as three chances went down and it wasn't until the 25th over that Mullion finally made the breakthrough when Barry Partridge coming on as third change bowled Roberts with his fourth ball.

38 runs were added in the next five overs before Gary Tremayne made the next breakthrough, Jacob Rae taking the catch at mid wicket to dismiss Hancock for 60. 140 for 2 The next eight overs yielded a further 43 runs before Tinson was bowled by Jacob Rae for a belligerent 76. The final three overs offered Mullion a tantalising glimpse of what might have been as two further wickets fell (both bowled by Rae) as the Newquay innings came to an end with the score standing at 217 for 5.

After tea the Mullion innings got off to a sluggish start with both openers struggling to find their touch - this had a more dire consequence as a classic call of "Yes", "NO", "sorry" resulted in Jennings being run out for 4 in the eighth over. This brought Bruce Jordan to the crease and he and Stuteley batted sensibly, keeping out the good balls and punishing the bad balls, and adding exactly 100 for the second wicket until in the 21st over Jordan was adjudged lbw off the bowling of Hancock and departed having scored 61.

Partridge was the new batsman, but only one more run had been added when Stuteley was bowled by Hancock for 30 and sadly the momentum appeared to have been lost as with the addition of 20 more runs Partridge was caught by Eggins off the bowling of Robert. 129 for 4.

However the Buddha had other ideas. Abandoning plan "A" and reverting to plan "B" he began to put bat to ball in convincing fashion, and although partners came and went (Gary Tremayne 1, Daniel Johnson 1, Mark Johnson 0 (a true captain's innings!)) Buddha, ably supported by Jacob Rae, soon reached a deserved 50, but more importantly Mullion were still in the hunt.

It proved to be not quite enough. With Mullion requiring 33 runs to win from the last 2 overs (a difficult, but not impossible task), the Newquay bowlers proved equal to the pressure, and the Mullion innings ended 22 runs short, Rae undefeated on 5 and the mighty Buddha, playing for his averages, stranded on 68 not out.

So another season ends - time to reacquaint oneself with family, friends and the dog. While just missing out on promotion, was obviously disappointing, the Mullion players can hold their heads up after a thoroughly enjoyable season. Only 253 days to the start of the cricket season ...

Newquay 4s 217-5 in 40 ov (J Hancock 60, J Tinson 76); Mullion 2s† 196-7 in 40 ov (I Laity 68*, B Jordan 61; T Roberts 4-26). Newquay 4s win by 21 runs.