Yet another glorious spring day, clear skies and 25°C leading to our fifth match before April is out and what is believed to be a club first, a match on Good Friday. Both sides had 12 players available so a bat eleven, field 12 (only eleven on the field at any time), was supposedly agreed before the match but there was some misunderstandiing as to whether it was bat eleven or bat twelve.
Club vice-captain and skipper for the day, Richard Clare, won the toss and chose to bat with Palfrey and Brunskill opening. Palfrey was unlucky to play-on for two after facing only three balls and was replaced by Sarma, the MCC wicket keeper for the day. The two opening bowlers for MICs, Krishna and Nath were very parsimonious and it was difficult to score. In fact the four opening batsmen all depareted for single figures and at the halfway stage after 17 overs, MCC were 51 for 4. Clare and Sear put on 43 for the fifth wicket with Hobbs and Sear adding 38 for the sixth wicket which fell with the total on 131 in the 29th over. The score stayed the same until the 34th over but the wickets shot up to 8 down. Mayston and George put on a valuable 14 runs for the 9th wicket and MCC finished the 35 overs with 145 runs on the board.
The MICs, apart from Krishna and George, played as if there were no tomorrow and had 50 on the board after only 7 overs, however they were already four down by then thanks to some tempting bowling and very good catching as well as a rather generous LBW decision from their umpire. Durn who was looking very good was out to a stunning catch by Clare and things progressed to MICs being 7 down for 137 after 21 overs, then 137 for nine down after 22 overs. This was when the discussions of how many could bat started but MICs finally accepted that it was a bat eleven, field twelve fixture. One run was added in the 23rd over before their eleventh man, Rafiq, fell to a diving catch from Palfrey to seal the victory by two runs, a victory which at one stage, after Clare, who had already taken two catches dropped a dolly and later, a certain run out was turned into a complete hash, much to the mirth of the spectators. In the end a very satisfactory win for MCC and great credit to the team for showing a lot of character and refusing to accept defeat.
Palfrey, 2, bowled, 1 catch
Brunskill, 8, caught
Sarma, 7 caught, 2 catches
Rabbani, 5 bowled
Clare, 23, bowled, 3 overs, 0 mdns, 18 runs, 0 wkts, 2 catches
Sear, 48, bowled, 6.1 overs, 2 mdns, 20 runs, 3 wkts,, 1 catch
Hobbs, 7, bowled
Mayston, 6, caught
Caspari, 0, bowled
George, 2*, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 43 runs, 4 wkts
Blades 0*, 7 overs, 0 mdns, 31 runs, 3 wkts
Shankarappa DNB, 3 overs, 0 mdns, 39 runs, 0 wkts.
MCC won by 2 runs
MCC man of the match: Sear