Buckden CC: Huntingdonshire County League side bowled out for just two to lose game by 258 runs

"I've certainly got more grey hairs than I had before I was captain."

Not a single Buckden batsman managed to score a run - only a bye and a wide saved them from the total ignominy of being dismissed for zero.

There were, in fact, only nine batsmen as Joel had not been able to muster a full XI for the game at Falcons CC in Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, which they eventually lost by 258 runs.

"We only had eight at the start, aged between 15 and 50 - and Graham Pearce arrived 30 overs in because he'd been working," Joel told BBC Sport.

"We had 15 players unavailable, two or three were injured, the others had family commitments - and there was one no-show."

Buckden started the match bottom of the Huntingdonshire County League Division Four table.

But factory worker Joel said: "We are genuinely not a bad team. When we played Falcons before we only lost by nine runs."

On this occasion, he decided to put Falcons in after winning the toss because of his side's depleted numbers.

"I wanted to make a game of it - we weren't going to score many with the team we had available. And considering we only had eight, we were doing pretty well when they were 76-4."

Joel began the game keeping wicket following a family bereavement - "I wasn't in the right mind to concentrate on bowling" - but took off the pads after 20 overs and was rewarded with the wicket of Faheem Sabir Bhatti.

"It was a pretty easy caught and bowled. He just dollied it straight up in the air," the 27-year-old said.

But Falcons eventually reached 260-6 from their 40 overs, thanks mainly to a 132-run partnership between Faheem and Murad Ali.

So what did Joel say to his players during the tea interval?

"I just told them to either stick it out or just go for their shots as we weren't going to get [close to] that total. Of the nine players we had, only one - Richard Howells - is a batsman, the rest of us were bowlers and fielders," he said.

His worst fears were soon realised with the fall of an early wicket - and they kept on falling as Amandeep Singh took 6-0, including a hat-trick.

The scorecard shows a nought next to each batsman's name - although Joel insisted: "Richard Howells should have been given a run, but it went down as a bye."

Joel himself lasted only a handful of deliveries - "I middled the ball but hit it straight to mid-off" - and the entire Buckden innings was done in just 8.3 overs.

"I can't really believe it. I thought they'd bring on a couple of spinners after they'd got four or five wickets but they didn't, they kept their opening bowlers on," he said.

"It was pretty amazing. But I can't blame the players, at least they turned up. The team we'll have next weekend will be completely different as I've already got 14 available for that one."

In the words of Yazz, the only way is up for Buckden after a result like that and Josh, for one, will carry on with enthusiasm undimmed.

"I've been playing since I was 13 or 14 and I've never lost like this before," he said. "But it's just a game of cricket and we're not a bad team.

"I love cricket. I wouldn't give it up for the world."