Radley College 3rd XI  8 May 2025

Manager Ross Buchanan

Won by 8 Runs

SOA 176 for 4 (Andrew Hodder-Williams 58, Paul Ager 48, Alastair Eykyn 30*)

Radley College 168 all out (Alastair Eykyn 5.5-0-33-3, Simon Brown 4-0-33-2)

Facing a school 3rd XI was not expected to be such a tough early season task. But what a cracking game!

An elderly SOA batted first and the school opening duo immediately seemed more than worthy of promotion to a higher grade. Andrew Hodder-Williams and Paul Ager battled through a tirade of unplayable deliveries, until with changes the bowling became a bit friendlier and they reached a laudable century opening stand at a run-a-ball. SOA lodged a 'par' 176-4 from their 30 overs at tea, with the help of a useful unbeaten 30 from SOA debutant and Radley Old Boy Alastair Eykyn.

In response, the schoolboys took rather a liking to our distinctly slower bowling and at 155-4 - the heavy-hitting Archie Read 86 not out thrashing us to all parts to the delight of his teammates - and with seven overs still to play, all seemed lost. But then Ali Eykyn entered the fray on his hallowed school turf and suddenly a collapse of Scottish rugby proportions played out in front of us all, snatching the MOM award in the process.

Triggered initially by a genius Jontyesque running-out the behemoth Read by the bizarrely youthful Rich Stephenson, the noise from the boundary edge subsided step by step as one after another the boys lost out to the swing an accuracy of Eykyn. He combined well with Radley teacher Iain Campbell, who took a classy stumping worthy of note for the vital ninth wicket, with just ten runs needed.

Surely this creaking team of senior SOA players, all 30 or more years older than the oppo, and the first time in whites since the previous summer, couldn't pull of the greatest of heists?

Nine down and Eykyn ran in for his penultimate delivery of the day and once again put it on an immaculate outswinger's length. No 11 middled a checked off-drive, knowing that runs were still required - good contact was made, but was it too uppish?

The barrel-chested Neil Wilkins, until that ball entirely statuesque sat mid-off all day, took what felt like an inordinate amount of time to decide whether to try to catch or just stop the boundary somehow. In doing so he did neither, but instead managed to fall forward as stiffly as a mighty felled oak, the ball seeming small as it nestled into his giant hands prostrated in front of him, lying unusually quiet yet heroically still as his aging cock-a-hoop teammates, in the united thrill of an unlikely victory, turned back briefly themselves into joyous schoolboys bouncing around him.