Cricket season is back with the 3s picking up where they left off last season – losing a low scoring thriller by 5 wickets to Lincoln 1s. Amogh set the tone for the day by arriving 15 mins late to his own meet time because he decided to pay £5 to park in Westwood rather than at Cryfield for free – absolute melon. The excitement was building as most of the boys were eager to make their BUCS debut after 2 terms of hard work and training. We certainly looked the part with our foam rollers, resistance bands and gun warm-up drills compared to Lincoln who strolled in 30 mins before KO. “They look shit boys; we should dick them” – HAHAHAHAHA.
Boasting a strong batting line up (on paper) and with the sun beaming, Amogh decided to bat after winning the toss – backing the batsmen to set a decent total and put pressure on the lethargic looking opposition. However, fate had other ideas. What followed can only be described as an utter fucking shit show. Pokora survived a plumb af LBW shout second ball as the score trotted on to 19-0 from the first 8 – the opening bowlers proving difficult to get away. Having taken 23 balls to get his eye in on a tricky surface, Amogh chipped one back to the bowler and departed for 1. A pretty decent knock by his standards. Pokora soon followed – getting cleaned up by a good nut after playing some lovely shots. Sood then came in and made their spinner look like Shane Warne by getting squared up basically every ball before losing his patience and top edging a sweep. Dec’s BUCS debut was a bit like Rav – short and shit. We now found ourselves in trouble at 33-4 after the first 20 with both opening bowlers bowling out and finishing with incredible figures. Nevertheless, with BUCS veteran Harry Riley and Nathan still in, there was still hope of setting a respectable total. The two looked comfortable, running well between the wickets and working the gaps nicely as we reached 48-4 at the half way stage. “Keep doing what you’re doing boys, lets see where we are at 40 overs and then we can push in the last 10” – advice from the skipper knowing that 120 is defendable with a gun bowling attack. The plan was soon in the bin however, as we collapsed to 54 all out OFF 36 OVERS, with a few questionable shots on show leading to us losing 6 wickets for just 6 runs – ex-international cricketer Jinesh the pick of the tail scoring 5. A very poor batting display with the boys not showing enough intent or bottle and getting bogged down by some decent bowling.
With the weather looking gloomier than Birdy’s face 99% of the time, we went straight back out to avoid the rain. An inspirational team talk from Amogh got the lads in high spirits and confident of defending what some may call a slightly below par total. The atmosphere in the field was electric as Rohan Agrawal stood at the top of his 10-yard run up looking fiery like Yardley from “Lagaan” (Bollywood). He was right on the money from ball one, finding the inside edge in the first over which was tragically dropped by 1s/2s gun keeper Pokora. Sam took the new ball from the other end and bowled quick but struggled to land the ball on the pitch. Rohan then got the early breakthrough in his second over, getting one to nip back in off a length and send the stumps cartwheeling. An early change saw Kushal come on and bowl beautifully with Rohan as the pair rolled through the Lincoln top order. With such a low total to get though, the batsmen swung hard at any width and a few streaky boundaries saw them edge closer to victory. A brilliant bowling change from Amogh saw ex-international cricketer Jinesh replace Rohan and use his international experience to take a wicket straight away, leaving Lincoln 5 down with 10 runs still to get. A smidgen of hope – if we can lose 6 wickets for 6 runs, so can they! Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be as the real Jinesh returned and got pumped.
Overall a spirited performance from the boys in the field but ultimately 54 was never going to be enough. Need to learn from our batting but a few positives to take into next week as the atmosphere and energy in the field was fantastic.
Probably should’ve bowled first…