An often overused phrase in cricket is 'All results were possible'. This, though for once, was never more true than in the 3's game at Stanmore,with the rarest result of them all, a TIE, the eventual outcome!

As the T's made the long trek round to Watford to play at the attractive Met Police Bushey Ground,they won't mind admitting that their eyes were on rolling bottom of the table Stanmore as quickly as possible,in order to get back and watch England start their quest for world footy dominance.

Things didn't go immediately to plan,as Skipper Paul Johnson lost the toss and was unsurprisingly asked to take first hit.

Openers Don Campbell and Colin Blunden came up against the accurate 'Tony Bendelowalike' Ross Chiese from one end and the more youthful Nalin from the other.

The wicket was quite spongy,and both bowlers extracted bounce,making front foot shots difficult,and straight away scoring shots were at a minimum.

Campbell was first to go falling to a catch off Chiese for 14.This brought Ross Montgomery to the crease who'd hot footed it down from Brum especially for the game..Unfortunately,he flashed at a wide one from Nalin and went for 5.

When Syed Hussein miss timed a square cut to backward point off Chiese to fall for 8,Twickenham had crawled to 53 for 3 off 25 overs.

Skipper Johnson then joined Blunden,and they proceeded to construct an excellent partnership dispatching any loose balls and upping the scoring rate in the process. Blunden in particular played some exquisite trademark straight drives,hitting 4 huge maximums, whereas Johnson made use of the extra bounce, preferring the back foot route.

The partnership went passed 120 in the 49th over before Johnson fell on his sword being bowled by Prakash for 48.

Blunden followed soon after for a superb 88. This allowed an entertaining cameo from Mark Smith,who hit 2 huge 6's in his 22 not out. And with Pete Burke also undefeated on 10,Johnson called time with the score on 213 for 5 after 52 overs.

After the long trek back and forth to the clubhouse for tea,T's set about making early inroads into the home batting.

First to strike was Pete Burke,clean bowling skipper Evans,followd by 'birthday boy' Rohan Kulkarni,who got the other opener Manish,caught brilliantly down the leg side by a diving Jon Trippett.

It became apparent that Stanmore's players might have had the same idea about the football as Twickenham's,because a procession of rash shots saw them slump to 80 for 6.

Although T's had some 'ageing' legs in the field,good catches by Blunden,Johnson and Hussein were taken,as further wickets were snaffled by Kulkarni,Smith and 2 for Tony Bendelow.

It was then that the game started to change! Wicket keeper Armour came to the crease and was joined by Chiese. These 2 basically took the game away from Twickenham,as they dispatched the bowling to all parts!  Armour in particular played big shots all round the wicket,taking 22 alone off one Smith over!

The scoreboard went passed 100,then 150 and it was pretty much game up when Chiese was finally bowled by Johnson for 39.

Armour continued to flay away though,as he shot into the 80's....The scene was then set for a truly amazing finish....

With only 4 runs to win,and in a bit of desperation,Johnson threw the ball to his openers,youngster Kulkarni and Burke.

With the field inevitably saving the single,Janeen decided to try and finish it in one hit going for the big hit off Kulkarni over mid on. What followedwas one of the best catches you'll ever likely to see ANYWHERE as Mark Smith sprinted fully 10 yards and dived full stretch taking the catch with his left hand over his shoulder!

It still looked a consolation ,a Stanmore still only needed 4 more runs and still had 2 wickets in hand,with Armour at the crease.

3 more runs were taken off the remainder of Kulkarni's over,leaving Armour to score the winning run off Burke.

It appeared that Burke wasn't going to give the batsman the pleasure of achieving this,as his first ball looked a stone dead wide down the leg side.

The umpire looked long and hard,but decided that it wouldn't be 'proper' to win a game on a wide,so declined the call. Surely wouldn't matter though?

Next ball Burke dobbed in a slow long hop outside the offstump,game over? ,well no,as somehow Armour managed to inside edge it onto his stumps!  Gone for 84!

As the tension grew to unbearable levels,number 11 Prakash strode to the crease. Surely he'd finally finish it off.

In bounded Burke,who decided to save the best ball of the day to the very end bowling the perfect legcutter,taking the top of Prakash's off stump first ball!!

The T's players were in raptures as both sets of players couldn't quite believe what they had just witnessed!

So it was off  to the bar to watch the remainder of the football,but in truth,once the dust had settled the T's players new that they should have wrapped this game up long before the amazing finale.

Back to normality next week as Eastcote visit St Mary's.