Having lost in our first clash of the season, the Railway Tavern regained the upper hand last night in the latest T20 fixture at North Middlesex CC. Having won the toss and chosen to bat to take advantage of the better light, the Strollers got off to a decent start with Paul Bowstead promoted up the order to open the innings with Graeme and, with the two of them running for anything going, the run rate was at an impressive 8 per over for the first quarter of our innings. Paul was the first to go though followed by Graeme who, on 36, was looking in great touch before he unluckily pulled to square leg where he was sharply caught out. Spencer too was in good nick and had made 32 before he was bowled.

At the other end, wickets fell with Matt and Chris dismissed cheaply and Dickie - although given a sporting reprieve from the Taverners after he was wrongfully given LBW - was the victim of another one of those controversial run out decisions. The Taverners bowling became ever more accurate and hard to score against, but vice skipper Tim was batting in an unflustered manner and had made a useful 25 not out by the time the innings closed on a respectable if not imposing 145-6.

In reply, the Taverners got off to a flyer scoring 17 off the first over and 12 off the next. Jonny Kemp cashed in on the lucky dismissal of Clarke who holed out to Graeme at deep backward square leg (or had Jonny set the trap??). But Rose and Terry were batting with ease in the face of a Strollers attack that lacked depth. Spencer and Graeme stemmed the runs somewhat, Graeme taking a sharp caught and bowled to dismiss Terry but by then the hundred was up and the game was heading to it's inevitable conclusion. To try something different, Spencer brought on Gav for his first spell of the season but the big feller couldn't recreate the 'magic of '09' and saw his hitherto much-admir'd bowling stats take a hammering as the Taverners skipper Andy got his eye in and hoiked three big boundaries off him.

In the end, the Taverners cruised over the winning line with almost 5 overs to spare and the Strollers victory-less streak lengthened to four games on the bounce. Time to relocate our winning mojo, methinks!