Perhaps the most significant event, however, took place in August when we received notification that we had been accepted into the Cricketer Cup, the competition for old boys' sides. This tournament started in 1967 with 16 schools — ironically one of the driving forces behind it was E.W. (Jim) Swanton. Even when it was expanded to 32 teams in 1969, we did not meet the selection criteria. These 32 participants remained unaltered until this summer when Old Blundellians withdrew. We were one of three on the final shortlist — Eastbourne and Bedford were the others — and we comfortably won the vote of the organising committee. The decision was largely because of the vibrant nature of the club, our record of touring and strong fixture list; it was also an indication of the strength of Cranleigh cricket and the reputation it now has among public schools. We will make our debut against Harrow on June 10 on the Jubilee.

The Brewers Cup has served us well, but it is a competition which has grown weaker in the last few years - the reality is that almost half the sides are nohopers. Our road to the final started with a facile nine-wicket win at Bloxham and then St Edmund's Ware gave us a quarter-final bye. In the semi-final we met Old Hurstjohnians, the side we had beaten in the 2004 final, and made light of a target of 256. We slipped to 32 for 2 before our Kenyan duo of Abeed Janmohamed (68) and 16-year-old Seren Waters (129) added 180 for the third wicket to all but see us home. Waters, whom we first encountered as an 11-year-old on our Kenyan tour in 2001, is a precocious talent who, like his school and Surrey team-mates Stuart Meaker and Alan Cope, should progress far.

The final was a low-scoring affair and, to be honest, a poor game. After winning the toss we bowled and fielded well to dismiss Denstone for 130, Man-of-the-Match Alex Craven taking 3 for 27 and Nick Read and Waters two wickets each. The match seemed to be meandering to an inevitable conclusion as we ambled to 85 for 2, but 14 overs and an hour later we were facing defeat at 125 for 8. Ed Henderson came in and lost his off stump to the first ball he faced — as Denstone celebrated they failed to notice a no-ball call and in the confusion we scrambled three more runs. That tipped the balance and Eds Copleston, who had battled with focused determination to make a vital 24 not out, hit the winning runs. Our brittle middle-order had made it a tense finish, but few neutrals begrudged us victory victory over an ill-disciplined opposition.The season itself was by and large highly enjoyable and the cricket week was played in endless sunshine with the exception of the Monday which was rained off at tea. We lost three old boys' games convincingly — Charterhouse, Tonbridge and our inaugural match at Winchester, all potential Cricketer Cup opposition — and we threw away another against Georgians where we started the last hour needing 97 from 20 overs with seven wickets in hand and managed to lose by 59 runs — with septuagenarian Brian O'Gorman, who first played against us in the 1960s, taking five-for.

The School routed us for the second season running, proof, if it were needed, that the boys were now our superiors. A decision was made that in future we have to field our strongest (ie cup) XI to have any chance of competing. Our other loss was in a club match at East Horsley where we went down by one wicket after clawing our way back from what had seemed to be a heavy defeat.

We did record wins against two other old boys' sides — Eton and Rugby — as well as our three Brewers Cup successes. The Rugby victory came after we had been set 288 to win, and two of our young guns — Damien Hill and Rob Merry — saw us home. Hill followed his unbeaten 129 with another hundred in a drawn match with the Buccaneers seven days later. That game witnessed one of the most remarkable onslaughts in recent memory when Jock Vickers hit 95, the last 90 of which came off 30 balls and he went from 50 to 95 in 11 deliveries. In seven overs after lunch we scorched from 126 for 4 to 242 for 4.

We won our season-opening club games at Old Spots and Esher and our inaugural clash with the OC-dominated Hambledon where Hill again took centre stage with 78. We also edged out Celeriacs where Sam Worthy shone with 68.

Hill dominated the batting, with his two hundreds helping him on his way to 481 runs at 48.10, the sixth-best season aggregate in our history. A sign of the promise for the future was that all five hundreds (itself a record for a season) scored in the summer (the others came from Waters, Matt Crump and Tristan Rosenfeldt) were made by players 23 or under; the oldest of the dozen or so batsmen who passed 100 runs was Copleston, a positive veteran at 28.

The ancient Michael Chetwode played less this year, and several bowlers rose to the challenge of filling the considerable void his absences left. Nevertheless, the old warrior still took the most wickets (21) and in his final outing of the summer creaked past 600 career wickets. Copleston's flighted legspin took 16 wickets and Watkinson chipped in with 14. But behind them the young guns all made useful contributions.

Other landmarks included Copleston becoming the sixth person to pass 3000 runs and the 15th to make 100 appearances for the club; Martin Williamson passed 2000 runs, and Williamson and Chetwode completed 27 consecutive seasons.

We continued to thrive under the benign captaincy of Watkinson and the despotic presidency of John McDermott, Copleston ran the cup matches with manic efficiency, while several stalwarts worked hard behind the scenes to ensure everything went smoothly. Rob Merry, Henderson and Johnny Gates — who remained cheerful despite a wretched season with the bat — all made valuable contributions.

Sadly, at the end of last year our long-term scorer and former Hon Secretary Chris Hamm died aged 59.

In November 2005 we travelled to Hong Kong to participate in the international Sixes, where we acquitted ourselves admirably on the pitch and memorably off it. Seasoned tourists were reduced to quivering wrecks and more than one went into hiding before the five-day trip was over. In February 2007 we undertake our fifth major overseas trip when more than two dozen OCs head to India for a six-match tour.