MCC-1 v Erlangen CC
Munich, 23rd July 2022
After the 20-20 experience that we have already placed behind us (playing Erlangen CC at their home ground), we are hosting ECC at home today. The usual damp and green Hirsch looks like a typical Aussie summer ground all dried and dust flying when the ball hits the surface (thanks to who ever decided to cut the grass on one side of the ground so short). The Erlangen players arrived well before time and there were plenty of murmurs about flicx from both sides and umpire.
Skipper Jonty lost the toss and we were send to bat first.
The initial overs saw some bouncers well above the head and shoulders and some sneaky ones that held low on bounce. Nothing spectacular about the start, and Joy added one more to his “Duckilicious” ranks. Vish looked like he is in a mood to stay, and Jonty got a “Life” as he was dropped at “0”, but he couldn’t make it count, he got out looking for a biggie. Their opening bowlers were doing their job well and keeping our run rate well below 2 per over!
Vish’s defence didn’t work long, and he had to walk back to the pavilion after some solid play.
Looked like Deep and Mucca were about to start a good partnership when Mucca perished to a slow ball that completely deceived him and hit his pads (sources report that it was kind of going down the leg, but could have hit the middle stump). Deep looked like he was getting into his grove, as it seemed he woke up from his slow start and hit a beautiful boundary to the covers. Suchit on the other end was making the spinners work really hard for their wickets and showed some solid defensive skills on the Flicx.
Deep perished to a mistimed shot and was caught at mid-wicket. He made 14, the third highest scorer of our innings (first being extras at 26).
Such and Cam looked good in the middle and looked like starting to build a good partnership. Cam hits a boundary and raises hopes again for us to have a decent score on the flicx to defend. But he perishes, as he gets bowled by a low bounce deadly crawling ball. It looked like it just crawled on to the stumps. Score is now 74-6!
Such gets out the next ball and the score remains 74 but at the loss of 7 wickets! “Oh boy, are we in trouble?????”
Then walks in our smooth operator and top scorer with the bat Amol. He and Steve started to look good in the middle and was hitting some beautiful shots around the ground. Steve gets out – caught by the wicket keeper for a very helpful 15 runs and Amol is still out there. The score is now 105-8! Just in the span of one over we lost 2 wickets (2 more ducks) and the final score says 107/10 in 38.1 overs!
Defendable, absolutely defendable!
After a short break, we walked into the middle and Waqa express and Cam “Lockie Fergusson” Foskett are ready to start with the new ball. After getting hit for a boundary, Waqas makes his prey play on to the Mid on and Joy takes an easy catch. First batsman dismissed with a score 7 on the board. Waqas hits again and gets a wicket a couple of dot balls! Leg before wicket! Batsman gone for a duck (his 3rd duck against us this season) and score is now 7/2 in 2.4 overs – “We are pretty much in the game”.
There were a couple of boundaries hit and the batsmen looked like they are taking the game away from us and Cam bounces back by taking a splendid catch on his own bowling! This is turning out to be a good game. We are back in the game. The dangerous Bilal falls for Cam, as he plays on to his stumps. Erlangen are 28/4. Their faces looked scared when they walked in to bat! Flicx is doing ist job.
First change of bowling – skipper comes in himself. Jonty picks the wicket of Wasif – bowled with a strike rate on par with Such’s 52 ball 12. Change of bowling and change of pace is making the guest’s life not easy. Wickets are falling in regular intervals. Neeraj gets off mark by taking a wicket and Jonty picks up one more.
Ganesh who walked in next hit a couple of boundaries and was looking dangerous before trying for a quick but dodgy single. Butterly Amol slides along the deck and produces a direct throw and the dangerious Ganesh had to walk back to pavilion. The score 72-8! Mucca takes another splendid catch at slips off Neeraj’s bowling and the score says 72-9! MCC 1s, looking at a win with just one wicket to pick!
The last man looked like he wanted to give a fight. And he did make our life slightly difficult. But in the end Neeraj picks Aniket, who was defending pretty well and made 9 off 46 runs. The score says 84/10!!!!!!!
MCC has won the game. That’s two wins in a row! One away win and one home win!
What a game of cricket!
YOY
