After last week’s crushing victory over Warwick CC confidence was high heading into the encounter against BoomBoys, a team rumoured to have had success in the past. Having complained for weeks about not being able to find his counterpart driving license Barclay found it in a folder marked ‘important documents’ in his room. What a muppet! This meant he could finally get the driver card that would allow Jewson to actually attend an important Tuesday lecture. With that all sorted the team was selected with it again being fresher strong. The line-up was freaher Cooper, Tedmonds, Paras, Barclay, fresher Rob Ryan (wk) and fresher Kraus
Unlike the Beauclerk tradition of losing the toss in the past, Barclay won, not really being used to having to choose between batting or fielding. On the basis of the strong performance last week batting first, Barclay chose to bat with huge confidence in his team to reproduce the magic shown last week against Warwick CC.
Cooper and Tedmonds opened the batting again, Cooper eager to continue his good form and Tedmonds eager not be run out again. But the innings began poorly. Cooper, after a confident forward defensive for 1 first ball, was astonishingly out LBW for 1. A rare sight in indoor cricket and one that nobody bar the Boom Boys wished to see. This brought Paras to the crease and with Tedmonds, stroked the ball beautifully adding 17 to the score from over two alone. It was the last ball of the over previously however which created some nerves amount the UWMCC ranks. As we all know wicketkeepers for reasons unknown feel the need to whip the bails off at every opportunity. The batsman could be more in his crease than out but this never seems to matter. Perhaps the Boom Boys keeper felt the need to show off or maybe he has a phobia of bails on stumps. Whatever the reason the bails came off after a useful out swinger passed the bat of Tedmonds. The standard cricket vocabulary such as ‘gun’ and ‘sharp’ were used by the UWMCC players to describe this pointless act but as all wicketkeepers will tell us, its effective in keeping a batsman who is proud of his wicket welded to his crease, limiting his scoring options. As it turned out it wasn’t only the keeper who was ‘gun’ and ‘sharp’ as Tedmonds, Paras and Barclay were all run out for 12, 12 and 4 respectively with the score at 31 for 4. Matters were not helped by the swift arrival and exit of Kraus who, like many tailenders before him, was bamboozled by a straight ball; bowled first ball with the score still only 31 now for the loss of 5 wickets. A valiant effort from debutant Rob, caught out for 12, saved the UWMCC from further embarrassment. A bad day at the office combined with some brilliant fielding from Boom Boys meant the UWMCC were all out for 47, a very below par score.
‘It’s a game of two halves’. These are the words spoken by every football pundit known to man and it certainly applied here as the Boom Boys came out to begin their chase of this rather modest target. A fabulous first over from Kraus was just what the doctor ordered with it only going for 1 run. Kraus proceeded to bowl out all his overs with outstanding figures of 0 for 9 off 3 overs leaving the score 30 for 1 after 5 overs. If he keeps on churning out performances of this calibre, he will no doubt be the front line spinner on the international tour despite Jewson feeling he should be the no. 1 spinner because in his eyes ‘South Africans can’t play spin’. Captain Barclay felt that the wicket was aiding leg spin so decided to bowl himself. The effect was immediate with a wicket first ball. A test match like wicket, turn, bounce, edge taken and caught by Tedmonds at slip/’the corner’/not exactly where Barclay wanted him but was glad he was there. Despite this wicket and another from the increasingly impressive all-rounder Paras, the UWMCC were unable to keep the runs down enough to really cause any discomfort for the Boom Boys who chased down 48 for the loss of 3 wickets. To the UWMCC’s credit this was off 8.3 overs which was an outstanding effort compared with the nightmare of the first innings.
A bad day for the UWMCC but important lessons were learnt by our very fresh team and for captain Barclay as it turns out. In his disappointment of losing his first game as captain he forgot to photograph the scorecards after the match hence the lateness of this match report. What a muppet! Again!