MCC v SVL Friendly 25th June 2022
Like they say, there is a first time for everything. There are a couple of firsts in this report and the game that was played on last weekend (25th of June). Here is the first, first time- DK writing his first ever match report for MCC. Second one will follow.
The day was a clear sunny one without the excruciatingly hot temperature of the weekend before this (but enough for Spiessy to say for the gazillionth time, “the weather is almost as hot as India”). That being said, MCC lost another toss and this seems to be a very evident trend for all skippers and for this one, Vinny. We were asked to bowl first against Lohhof.
Waqas aka Munich Xpress and Manish aka Ricky opened up the bowling with 4 overs each and kept it nice and tidy. Waqas got the first wicket after testing the patience of a Batsman that looked grounded after he edged one to Deep in galley (the only bright spot of the day for Deep-hence this catch has been mentioned). Vinny very effectively moving around bowlers for that day brought on Neeraj who bamboozled the Lohhof lot with his spin and bounce and the apparent knowledge of the Flikxy. Rahul and Amol bowled a few in tandem and kept a check on the runs. The wickets kept falling and Waqas ended up taking 4 in his first spell with Rahul getting a couple as well. The bowling remained very economical throughout and the fielding tight without any cracks in the wall. This was all going well until Deep came to bowl, unsure of how misaligned his stars were for the day had two dropped catches of his bowling (names of people who dropped them shall not be mentioned as these catches were “sitters” as you call them). Deep didn’t blame them by the end of the match. Why? Wait for it…..
Lohhof were bundled for 131 by the 37th over with a little ship steadiment by Praf Toke and another guy who’s name doesn’t really matter at this point. This was it for the first innings.
Simrat and Trabal opened valiantly and giving a rock solid start to MCC’s chase. Trabal had trouble scoring many runs but the ship was steady. Simmy started nibbling on the runs gradually and things started moving. Dots became 1s, 1s became 2s, and some intentional pushes for runs became 4s. However, just when you thought “ah…its going great”, the pair on the crease (probably) misjudged a 2 and Trabal got in trouble with a runout. 1 wicket down. Abhishek came in next and batted great and hit a lovely six over square leg- was quite the view. After scoring bunch of runs and decent partnership, Abhishek was given LBW (can be debated- but the game goes on) and Vinny walked in to steer the ship further. Simmy walked back soon after but had done his job as opener. Here comes the second first of the game, Deep walked in to face a wide (unlucky for him doesn’t count as a ball played) ball, and then hit an ugly af shot down to extra cover only to be caught for his first ever golden duck in life, in MCC, in any team for that matter. Absolutely gutted and traumatised he walked back to sit in silence and repent. Moving focus from this debacle- Vinny and Rahul carried on hitting some good strokes around the field and kept the scorecard ticking. Soon after, we lost both Vinny and Rahul in quick succession with the helm to victory passed on to Manish and Waqas who somehow disobeying their natural instincts to hit the ball all over the park looked decent and played very classic cricket shots to settle MCC down and tread along slowly but surely to an inevitable victory.
Honourable mentions to Robert for fielding spectacularly well as he practiced “get your body behind the ball” ferociously well. Abhishek continued his keeping spree well and showing remarkable potential.
With Deep reliving his memories of the duck and a pretty horrible day for him, he hopes to have done a good job with the report and also hoping the next time he can write about a better knock, or well a knock atleast.
