Welcome to Maugham and Patel commentary at NCC--the world's biggest croquet centre (apart from Cairnlea...). We are up to game 4 with David attempting to get his hoop 5 ball started (2nd break). His other ball (yellow) is on 4-back and Samir is on 4-back (blue) and hoop 1 (black, for those of you unfamiliar with first colours...).

Maugham has done some nice work to get this break started from 5. He took off from black on south boundary (between hoop 5 and 4) to get in front of hoop 5. Ran the 2 yarder and had partner 2 or so yards west of 5. He is now approaching hoop 1-back with 2-back loaded.

Callum has kindly lent me (Greg Fletcher) his laptop to do some commentary. I've got nothing else to do until tomorrow, the Shield event had mostly byes until tomorow. So if I say anything un-Callum-like you'll know why.

Maugham is making 4-back. He's forgoing any risky peeling and will just set a good leave.

His load for rover isn't fantastic, it's directly south of the hoop by a foot. Not a problem if he gets behind it alright, however he may not want to be taking off to it or rushing his opponent ball that far south to load it back to peg.

He thought about just tapping it and leaving it at peg and taking off but rushed it south. It's sitting nicely at the peg however he ran into black after rover which didn't seem to please him much.

Blue is tight at the peg (6 or so inches) and black is directly opposite by about 8 yards (west). Samir is taking his hoop 1 ball to b-balk. Interesting choice considering Maugham has only got 3 hoops to make. I think he should take the short lift from A-balk and give himself the best opportunity.

Missed by 2 inches

Maugham rushes to 4-back and will be sorely pressed to stuff this break up. Pretty easy finishing break. It's going to a 5th game by the looks of things.

David runs penult with partner just off the west leg. Hits it to north west by a yard and rolls to load at rover.

Narrowly misses peg with his roll to rover pioneer

Pegging out.

He gets some lazy afternoon applause from the relaxing spectators who seem pretty drowsy...

Samir goes super shot (blue). David plays yellow to west boundary just short of the maximum distance point.

Samir shoots from b-balk and just misses. Only by a few millimetres.

David hits yellow from b-back and loads hoop 2 going to blue in the centre

Over cooks it

Pretty much has a rush straight at black in corner 4

Hits at it hard and just snicks it

Does a good take off in front of hoop 1 and runs cleanly

His load for hoop 2 is west by about 3 yards. Might make for a tricky approach

Nope, he plays a lovely shot in front of two and looks to have break 1 under control

The lawns aren't particularly fast today. It was warmer yesterday and we had more wind as well which made for a generally faster speed on the lawns. Me-thinks that watering the lawns each night may have had something to do with the pace...just a guess.

Maugham only just snicks the ball in corner 4, he had taken off from hoop three and landed only a yard and a half away from black. I think he's pleased he didn't end the break there and then.

He has loaded 6 with partner and probably wants to load it to 2-back eventually. After he made hoop 5 he left black 3 yards west of the hoop most likely in preparation for rushing yellow back down to black to load partner to 2back.

Yep, he gets the rush on partner back to black after running hoop 6.

Does his signature move at 1-back--blue ball on the west leg of 2.

For anyone interested, they were live streaming Reg and Jenny's game on youtube and have now swapped to Paddy and David. So if you want to see the real thing go to the live stream which is supposed to have a link up on the notts list.

For anyone interested, they were live streaming Reg and Jenny's game on youtube and have now swapped to Paddy and David. So if you want to see the real thing go to the live stream which is supposed to have a link up on the notts list.

Sorry, the internet is bad here. I may have sent that twice

David sets his Maugham standard leave and waits for Patel to shoot from A-balk. Which he misses fairly badly. He had a few refusals which may have been the wind or not feeling comfortable with his line up. Either way David has a standard to finish this game and the match.

Okay, I'm having some problems with the internet--still. To catch up on the action, David had sprayed the rush to hoop 1, only getting to in front of hoop 5, and took off to fall a foot and a half short of hoop 1. I haven't seen anything since then since I have relocated to inside the clubhouse to find the mysterious wifi which plays tricky games on anyone who dares to leave the confines of clubhouse.

I'm informed by Edmund Fordyce that Samir (with his ball sitting at hoop 5) hit David's ball (not sure which one) which was sitting with his partner ball on east boundary. He's now on a tpo. Just peeled red very nicely by about 2 yards through 4-back. He's got a standard tpo with everything under control. Will be interesting to see what eventuates from this tactical decision on Samir's part.

Nothing really interesting has happened since hoop 4, which Samir will be grateful for. I think that he will have little issue with this turn. Good control

3-back load has gone slightly too long. Not much, only south-east by 4 feet. It's fairly inconsequential but may be important for when he peels opponent through rover down to the load at 3-back. Generally it's not ideal to have it that deep and that far east since it may be hidden by the hoop when you play the peel in front of rover. But the lawns are slow enough to make this not to much of and issue.

A small bit of excitment. Samir plays the peel stroke and instantly lifts his right leg into the air and quickly looks up to the strikers ball, which narrowly misses 3-back. Nearly disastrous!

I went looking for some wifi after that, and I've returned to see that Samir has rushed partner to corner 4.

That was after rover.

He took off to the peg and after pegging off red retired into corner 3

Yellow is on hoop 2 so at some point Samir has popped david through but I'm not sure when. Must have been during one of those many trips I've taken back to the clubhouse to get wifi

David rolled corner 4 ball to hoop 3 and hit ball in corner 3. Rolled to 4 yard position in front of 2 and ran it to get a finishing break with 3 load nicely.

David loads 6 nicely but seems displeased with his 2 foot shot onto the load at 5. Runs 5 with some sticky wire

It would be pretty hard not to finish this break. But with a wayward load or a nasty approach you never know. It may or may not be curtains for Samir. I wonder if he is considering if he should have put strikers ball into corner 1 rather than 3. Not that it matters really, but with hindsight I'm sure it's come up in his mental deliberations.

Not the greatest approach by david to hoop 2 back. It's not bad, just giving him a little bit of grief.

Runs it easily.

David gets a wonderful 1 foot rush out of 3-back

His load for penult is a bit short, level with the hoop by 2 yards.

To be honest, David hasn't looked like he'll stuff up at anytime throughout this break. Everyone is just over analysing his shots since it's his winning break.

To be honest, David hasn't looked like he'll stuff up at anytime throughout this break. Everyone is just over analysing his shots since it's his winning break.

It's all over folks. David has made it through to the semi's. A nice last break to finish on. Good play all round in the last game by both. Samir couldn't do much more than he did.

I'm off now, enjoy the commentary for Paddy V David by some unknown person. Jenny Clarke, I think? :P