After a week with no fixture, UWMCC returned to the Coventry Indoor League looking to make it five wins out of five. With Paras Shah unavailable, (third choice) David Barclay was drafted into the squad under the label of a ‘batting all-rounder’, joining Jewson, Cooper, Kraus, Hall and Bradshaw. After leaving the land of Bebe (previously known as the University of Warwick), the UWMCC minibus came across traffic, leaving various topics to be discussed. Most notable were the observations on the potential sports officers; Cooper observing that he wanted a ‘football-rugby-cricket’ man, and other similar points on the general necessity of student union elections
Ensuing Jewson’s successful coin toss, UWMCC took to the field for a quick warm-up, hoping to carry Varsity-based momentum against the Coventry 4 XI opening batsman. With only three recognized bowlers (one of them being Bradshaw), Jewson elected to get an over out of Barclay early, which proved to be a fairly sound decision. Coventry’s batsman batted well, running well between the wickets and regularly scoring over 10 an over. Cooper’s first over, only going for five, was the stand out piece of bowling in the innings. A smart piece of keeping by Jewson resulted in a wicket, neatly intercepting a paddle sweep like the great Claude Makélélé and smoothly whipping off the bails. However, this was a rare moment of excellence in a fairly average bowling performance, and the mirage of being gun held by tour stash had all but disappeared for Bradshaw, as his ability to swing the ball away began ‘scaring him’, also scaring the umpire enough to give a few wides. With Coventry making 45 off their last three overs, UWMCC’s ranks were perhaps overly despondent with the 109 needed to chase for victory.
UWMCC’s reply began well – regularly finding the walls and scoring threes, even if Hall was very lucky not to be run out on the second ball of the innings. The high standard of umpiring never wavered, after all, as an official square leg umpire, who doesn’t ‘not see’ a run out every now and then? Meanwhile, Bradshaw reached 25 just 15 balls into the response, retiring in style, with consecutive boundaries (one maximum) past a very average off-spin-cum-leg-spin bowler. Somewhat uncharacteristically, UWMCC actually continued their good start, Hall retiring after nudges galore by snicking one straight to the hands of where second slip would be on a Saturday, three runs in the scorebook. Perennial number six Kraus was in a state of complete jubilation to see Barclay also retire, scoring perhaps the scratchiest 28 ever seen in the historic Coventry Sport Connex Indoor League. The one shot that ‘Barkley’ timed went for one, as he stood in admiration of his picturesque drive whilst it hid the side wall, rather than the back, nearly running out Cooper in the process. Cooper finished off the job with two classic straight drives, almost exactly like the textbook he had been reading before the game. With that, UWMCC strolled to an almost unheard of six wicket victory, reaching their target with all of an over to spare. Next job for Cooper is the chapter on ‘How to play the next Dale Steyn on a bouncy Newlands pitch’ in preparation for UWMCC’s South Africa tour.
As if the day couldn’t get good enough, news of Liddle engaging in verbal combat with one of the plague of election teams on campus filtered through to the UWMCC ranks. The UWMCC boys returned to election land happy, eagerly awaiting the duel with ‘The Diamond Ducks’ next week