Vs Birmingham City 1s
Warwick 108/4 10 Overs
Birmingham City 104/4 10 Overs
Warwick arrived at Edgbaston with a promising mixture of youth and experience, looking to impose themselves upon the BUCS Midlands Indoor group. First up was Birmingham City 1s, skipper Faal won the toss and elected to bat first. The experienced pair of Miten Khatri and Danny Williams opened up, however Khatri was to fall first ball courtesy of a leading edge. Faal came to the crease to join Williams and together they adapted their games very well, working the ball around the cage whilst running expertly between the wickets. Both batsmen retired after reaching their 25 respectively, which saw the arrival of Oli Thornley and debutant Jacob Sargeant. Thornley snicked off early whilst Sargeant looked comfortable in the indoor environment before being run out. Rory Annandale came and went without troubling the scorers and so Faal (35*) and Williams (37*) were brought back into the fold to finish the job, leaving the UWMCC with a very respectable total of 108/4 off of their 10 overs.
Rory Annandale opened up the bowling, initially struggling to find rhythm on all four legs. He was supported by Thornley who bowled some good areas with little reward. However, the pressure told and led to a couple of sharp run outs. Williams and Sargeant bowled 4 decent middle overs between them, yielding a couple more wickets and keeping the opposition that little bit behind the required rate. It came down to Birmingham City needing 15 off the last over and despite hitting a four and a couple of singles in the first three balls, Thornley held his nerve and Warwick were victorious by four runs.
Vs Coventry 1s
Warwick 51/4 10 Overs
Coventry 54/0 7.3 Overs
In the second game of the day, Warwick came up against local rivals Coventry, who lost the toss and were sent out to field. The Warwick innings faltered and stuttered throughout, with no real rhythm to it at any point. Khatri was run out early and was swifty followed by Williams, cleaned up by a good Yorker from the Cov opening bowler. Faal did his best to steady the ship, picking off anything on offer from what was a very tight Cov bowling performance. Thornley and Sargeant tried to hang around but failed to find their batting rhythm and both were caught out off of the bowling of the Cov skipper. Annandale then joined Faal (23*) for the last over but ultimately Warwick had fallen disappointingly short of where they wanted to be at the halfway point.
Despite taking to the field with optimism, Warwick were on the backfoot from the off in the Cov innings, with the bowlers being picked off by the two Cov opening batsmen who clearly felt at home in this format of the game. Fewer extras were bowled but the bottom line was that there were simply not enough runs to defend, coupled with a lack of early breakthroughs. Cov knocked off the runs required with a couple of overs to spare, providing a very frustrating end to the day for the Warwick lads. There is certainly much room for improvement as we approach term 2 but there were positives to be drawn upon, especially from the first performance. There is also good strength in depth in this years’ squad which will undoubtedly help us looking further ahead as we look to avenge the Cov defeat on Varsity day.