Tegernsee v Sekunden
Tegernsee, 31st July
After a few days of team shuffling, MCC Sekunden finally managed to gather eleven players for the game in Tegernsee. The team, inspired by the motivating views of the Tegernsee lake and the Alps, conducted a series of catching practices, which would later help Simart catch a difficult one later on in the actual match. Another reason for the drills was the puny fact that the Umpire of the match was more than an hour late. When the holier-than-thou Umpire (lets name him Monday) finally decided to grant us of his presence, he forgot the basic human decency of apologising as he had kept 22 players waiting. His nonchalant behaviour was only upped by his initial refusal of MCC debutant Sandy’s participation in the match. After Skipper Vinny and Simrat convinced the umpire, the match finally proceeded.
Vinny won the toss and decided to bowl with Shivam and Ritwik opening the bowling. The first ball of the match set the tone for MCC bowling where the opposition batsmen swinging hard for the ball edged it and it went for a four over third man. There were multiple more edges and balls flying in the air for the next eight overs, although luckily (or unluckily for MCC), they always found vacant areas and the scoreboard read 65 for 0. Finally, Shivam got the edge of the opening batsmen and Vinny swallowed it like a hungry shark swallows a fish. With this opening, MCC started making inroads in the opposition batting line up, particularly with the next pair of bowling duo- Macca and Amol. Whilst Macca bowled with variations, Amol kept persisting with tight line and length. Macca got the better of half of the opposition batting personnel with bowling figures of 8-2-36-5 and Amol got the rest with figures of 7.5-0-41-4. Tegernsee were finally bowled out for 152 in 26.5 overs and MCC used up only four of their blowers. Is there a statistician who can inform us if this has happened before, that only four bowlers were used for the entire innings?
I hope you have not forgotten about Monday yet, because we had as he was rather busy with two species of the opposite sex with as much plastic in them as five oceans combined. This led to the umpire being late in the field after both drinks and innings break. The lion, the witch, and the audacity of this B*tch Monday!
When Manish and Abhishek went out to bat, the mood in the batting camp was cheerful. However, like many things in life, it was short-lived. Abhishek had a ball stay low and got out. Manish tried to sweep a ball but the ball was faster in slamming to his pads. Monday gave him out, despite the ball being pitched outside leg stump, and argued that whilst the ball was pitched outside of leg stump, the impact was middle/middle-leg stump. Erm, what? May be ICC changed rules and did not inform us. The rest of the batting line up did not provide much resistance, or any resistance at all, and fell like a pack of dominoes. Although it does not raise questions about the batters skills as of yet, it certainly probes their judgement, especially Trabal, who decided to leave the ball and had his offstump slammed. Pity, as leaving was the most elegant shot he had played all day according to some of the spectators. MCC folded up with 52 runs in 17.3 overs, losing by exactly 100 runs. The last wicket of Ritwik was probably the most fitting end for the day’s play. He tried to flick and the ball brushed the thigh pad and was caught by the keeper. Monday went up to the leg umpire and asked if a sound was to be heard, which it was. The need for the discovery of origin of the sound was probably nearly not half as important for Monday.
Why did I call him Monday? Because everyone loathes it!
Trabal
