UWMCC gathered eagerly yet again in Warwick Sports Centre to look to avenge last week’s defeat against arch rivals Warwick. Captain Murphy was determined to get new faces Seb Gemes and Samay Shah used to the interesting conditions of the Connexion Arena, along with Ash Hughes, Hassaan Sadiq and Dan Lewis. However, the team was thwarted by moronic behaviour from Warwick Sport who for some reason had no idea where the transport was on campus. Eventually found, practice had to be skipped due to a late arrival and were sent into bowl by Leamington CC. Samay, Hassaan and Seb struggled to grasp both conditions and concept of scoring runs which meant UWMCC were only 15-2 off 5, with the former two batsman out stumped. However Seb batted on superbly to get presumably 25, although we’ll have no idea since the scorer decided not to bother with batsmans totals, including a glorious 6. Ash also hit a lovely straight drive for 4 before departing for about 10 introducing Dan Lewis to the crease. Excellent running and lovely deft dabs meant scoring 3 off almost every ball, which boosted the total to a far better than expected 81 off 10 overs.
Knowing this was a perfectly defendable total, captain Murphy opted for aggressive 3-1 fields and urged bowlers to not give extras. Leading by example, his first two went for only 12 runs but Hassaaan did not have the same fortune and extras proved to be costly as his two went for 29 runs leaving Leamington looking pretty on 41-0 after 4. Despite urging encouragement, heads were clearly down, which even the fresh who puzzled by Dan Lewis’ bizarre action couldn’t cheer up. Ash bowled well, undoing the batsman multiple times but it was not enough to bring us back into it as runs flowed even in our wickets as run outs and a stumping off a wide left Leamington needing 11 off the last two. Captain Murphy, who is starting to make David Moyes look like an expert, couldn’t even force a last over as UWMCC lost by 3 wickets.