You wait ages for a century and then two turn up together: Qasim Ahmed 101* and Sami Noor 103*.

Captain Avi won the toss and elected to bat. Sami and Qasim opened for OEs and they got off to a strong start, putting on 31 runs in the first three overs. They accelerated the run rate with the first change in the fourth over and from then on the runs flowed freely. Both batted positively and attacked bad balls mercilessly, although both survived dropped catches. The main worry was whether my stock of spare balls would run out.

By the start of the final over the score was 193, with Qasim on 97 and facing, and Sami on 85. Qasim secured his century off the first delivery with his 16th 4 of the innings. With only five balls left, it looked like non-striker Sami would end up the bridesmaid. The next delivery was called a wide and the pair stole a bye, so putting Sami on strike with five balls still to go. A chance for him to remind us that it was no posy in his hands but a bat with which he had already scored four 4s and six 6s in this innings. The finale was fiery, with the next few deliveries producing a 6, a no ball that was hit for 4 byes, a slog and miss that went for 4 byes, a 2 and a 4. With one ball left Sami was still on strike and on 97. The final delivery was met with a cow shot that went for 6, and at last we saw a flicker of a smile on Sami's face.

With the rest of the boys having had very little do so far, and a cushion of 226 runs to defend, the danger now was that of complacency. But there was no need to worry because what followed was a disciplined and determined bowling and fielding performance.

Luke and Lyle combined to draw first blood in the second over. Lyle reacted quickly and covered a lot of ground to catch a ball that was falling short. The wickets fell steadily and Totteridge struggled to score against accurate bowling. Charlie (3-0-7-2), Avi (2-1-3-1), Toby (2-0-3-1), Eddie (3-1-4-1), Ewan(4-0-9-1), Sami (1-0-3-0) and Lyle(3 -0-11-0) all came away with excellent bowling figures. Luke was a little expensive, but he more than made up for it with a superb fielding performance. The way he successfully patrolled a huge section of the boundary between Long-on and Long-off meant that OEs didn't really miss their eleventh man. Toby, Eddie and Avi also held on to catches, and only four byes managed to get past keeper Alex, who also took a catch.

Written by Chetan Shah