Not bad for a fat lad...

Cambridge to Casablanca survived a testing final two days to secure victory over a resurgent Spain side. The team currently rest in Tarifa, the southernmost point in continental Europe recovering from an arduos fightback from the Spaniards.

Leaving Seville, the previously anonymous Spanish wind entered the game with a vengence, and with Hills returning from the gasworks end, runs were suddenly very hard to come by. Suffering most was the previously unshakeable Davidson, requiring regular attention from the physio for saddle sores throughout the day, he then hit ´the wall´ ten miles from the overnight destination of Arcos de la Fontera. With his muscles depleted of glycogen and the wind reaching force 4 levels he looked in trouble, but gritting his teeth he ploughed on, and eventually limped to the finish.

The final day of Spain dawned even windier, and with energy levels already low, punctures galore and Dean´s bike finally beginning to suffer from a month of torrid abuse, the team faced their toughest day yet. With twenty miles to go until lunch and the wind continuing to rise, morale was perhaps at it´s lowest ebb since the loss of Gimson almost two weeks previously. Step forward Thomas Brian Doble. In the manner of his hero, Andrew Flintoff, Doble produced a potentially series winning spell of cycling. Just as Flintoff, despite a career threatening knee injury, produced defining spells in the Ashes of both 2005 and 2009, so Doble cycled through the pain of his own dodgy knee and dragged himself to the front of the peleton. Shielded from the wind by his sizeable frame and inspired by his talismanic prescence the rest of the team found the going easier and suddenly the twenty miles before lunch was gone in the blink of an eye. As Flintoff himself once said, ´not bad for a fat lad´.

With the south coast of Spain now appearing on the horizon the team once again sniffed victory and inspired by a combination of Doble and caffeinated bevarages knocked off the remaining runs after lunch to secure a hard-fought victory over Spain adn the series against Europe.

Tomorrow the team depart for Africa and a 4 day test against Morocco, hoping to arrive in Casablanca on Friday 13th(!). Fast bowler Hugh Pemberton commented ´Spain has been tough in many ways, especially the loss of wicket keeper Nathaniel Gimson, with the heat subsided and the wind increasing I´m looking forward  to the challenges that lie in wait in Morocco, woof´.
 
Jonathan Agnew, for TMS, in Tarifa