The new score book ordered after the partial failure of on-line scoring with CricHQ arrived in time for its maiden use for this match. Would it bring us luck, after all we had lost two previous league games, one no-result match and the opposition had won all three of their matches and were sitting at the top of the table?
Captain Weston used the correct Maria Theresa silver dollar to win the toss and chose to field despite some players suffering from the burning bum syndrome after the excesses at the Sitar on Friday evening, because there had been heavy rain of Friday night with light rain continuing in the morning. Scott and Blades opened the bowling for MCC with Scott getting the first victim LBW in his second over with the score on 5. Their second opener went in the 8th over, caught Ishtiaq bowled Blades and the score on 20. Sharique and Mohsin put on 69 for the third wicket, Sharique going in the 23rd over for 19 bowled by Nielsen, with the score on 89, many of them wides. In the next over Mohsin went for 38, caught magnificently by Scott off Sarma’s bowling. Appavu and McIntosh the CCB captain were now at the crease and could have been a dangerous combination. Fortunately McIntosh was caught Scott off Nielsen leaving CCB on 98 for 5 down. A good partnership of 69 – why this preoccupation with 69 by the CCB? – was ended when Appavu was run out by the Scott/Furlonger duo with the score on 167 in the 39th over. Two wickets fell in the final over, Samar bowled by Archer and Simran run out by Furlonger off the last ball of the over leaving CCB 175 for 8 down at the tea break.
After scrumptious teas provided by Blades, MCC opened with Veser and Weston. They put on 107 for the first wicket, Veser going for 41 in the 22nd over. Eight runs later, Weston, who had survived a very confident appeal for caught behind when on seven, went caught behind for 56, his fifty coming off 80 balls in 102 minutes. Sarma and Ishtiaq took the score to 146 before Sarma went LBW for 5 in the 28th over. There had been some controversy as the overs allocated to the CCB batsman were, apparently incorrect – I was the only scorer and had no help from CCB to identify their bowlers – and as it became more obvious that MCC would win there was some serious racial abuse of our two batman, so appalling that the umpires who understood the language being used by the CCB fielders had to step in and warn the offenders. There may be an official protest to the BCV and subsequently the DCB on their behaviour. Sarma was replaced by Mitchell – he that believes Birmingham lies in Gloucestershire – and they played very coolly taking us to victory in the 34th over.
Weston, 56, caught, 6 overs, 0 mdns, 38 runs, 0 wkts
Veser, 41 bowled
Sarma, 6, LBW, 8 overs, 0 mdns, 25 runs, 1 wkt
Ishtiaq, 39*
Mitchell, 10*
Dennett, DNB
Archer, DNB, 4overs, 0 mdns, 28 runs, 1 wkt
Furlonger, DNB
Nielsen, DNB, 6 overs, 0 mdns, 23 runs, 2 wkts
Blades, DNB, 8 overs, 1 mdn, 16 runs, 1 wkt
Scott, DNB, 8 overs, 0 mdns, 39 runs, 1 wkt.
MCC, 176 for 3 in 32.4 overs beat CCB 175 for 8 in 40 overs by 7 wickets
MCC MOM: difficult with Nielsen, Scott and Weston all in the running but awarded to Weston.
The new score book had made a good start.
Footnote:
MCC members are, of course, completely familiar with the laws of Cricket, but just to remind you here is Law 4.1: two scorers shall be appointed to record all runs scored, all wickets taken and, where appropriate, number of overs bowled.
This means that it is not the scorer’s responsibility to count the number of overs bowled by any bowler, nor to note how many boundaries are scored by the batsmen, nor the number of wides and no-balls bowled by each bowler. That means all your stats are the result of additional information noted by the scorers and sometimes, God forbid, mistakes are made, although this time I did get the maiden bowled by Blades.
