The day began beautifully; no one was late and the journey to Trent was rather swift. Slightly odd, the ground was adjacent to the entrance to the campus, and while Jaimin was finishing his essay, the rest of the gang took to the field for a fielding warmup, which was pretty village. Catches went down and some lads seemed to be aiming for the cars entering campus, rather than Riley’s mits. Turner ended up losing the toss and we were put into bat.
Samay and Toppers opened up. Toppers ended up clean bowled in the second over making it 0-1. Nikhil came in next at 3. Batting conditions were terrible. Overcast conditions meant the bowl swung both ways, the pitch was real dirty (length deliveries would pop up and bounce you or stay low) and Trent were bowling tight lines. We were on 47-1 from 20 overs. Whilst trying to make something happen, Samay sent two dollies up to cover which were put down by the same bloke. Nikhil on the other hand seemed to be getting some rhythm. At tea, we were 66-1 and we looked to push on a bit. Samay had still only found one boundary, just wasn’t hitting the middle of the bat. Nikhil was creaming them with 7 fours and 2 sixes. Samay played a juicy full toss straight to cover, having scored 24 off 94 balls. Riley was in next but was getting unpadded soon after, with a duck, having been caught behind. In came Gujar and then Adit when Nikhil was out leg before. Jaimin came in when Adit was leg before and scored a rapid 28 off 15, with 3 sixes and 2 fours. He was inevitably caught at long off before Om came in. Gujar and Jaimin had a really good partnership. Gujar ended up being bowled by a yorker with a fluid 60 off 45. Turner hit a beautiful six over fine leg. A ball that should’ve gone through mid-wicket, Turner was early on it and the bat faced the keeper on the follow through. We finished on 245-9 from 50 overs. Special mention to Samay and Nikhil for seeing off the threat of the new ball, and to Gujar and Jaimin for capitalising at the back end of the innings.
After tea, we were motivated to get our first win of the season in the bag. Turner bowled a tight line and got their opener LBW. Their number 3 looked a gun batsman and was finding the boundaries with little effort. Joe had good pace and shit chat from behind the stumps seemed to piss him off. He skied one straight up and was caught, before smashing the wicket with his bat and creating some beef with Adit. Willey came on as first change for Joe and bowled beautifully, with good pace and movement. Probably was a bit unlucky to not pick up more wickets that he deserved. Adit bowled pretty well, but got smashed out the ground by a great big ogre, and having smashed his hand with a chance at gully (great effort btw) meant he could only bowl 5 overs.
At this stage, Trent were in a good position to chase down the total but regular wickets proved to be too much for them. After the top order were out, only big hitters were left. Jaimin was bought into the attack and bowled tight lines. Toppers backed him up really well at the other end and Om bamboozled them with his googly. They all picked up wickets at crucial times and Trent ended up about 40 runs short after 49 overs. The lads performed really well to get the win. Batting, bowling and fielding looked strong with only small tweaks needed for when we face Loughborough. Great atmosphere on the bus back, picking up the dejected 1s from their loss with everyone getting ready for Adoptions. Man of the match goes to Nikhil for a really special knock of 58 off 85. He held his end against a well-disciplined bowling attack and day 5 Test batting conditions.