They provided two umpires for both innings, one of them (Bob Eaton) played for the British Lions in Bulawayo during the South African tour of 1974 and the other (Hugh Ellerton) was wearing a pair of deckchair design trousers owned at one time by Elton John. How he came by them no-one knows and no-one really wishes to know.

As the Effigies had suffered from a number of baillages three MCC members – O`Connor, Soundararajan and Jadwani – volunteered to play for them to make a game of two ten-a-side teams.

Captain Clare won the toss and chose to bat in a 30 over friendly and sent in O`Meagher and Fudge to begin the innings. Fudge started well but was soon out in the fourth over having scored 5 from 7 balls and made way for keeper Garner who hung around until the ninth over before being bowled for 6 off 13 balls. In came Wright for his last innings at the Hirschanger before returning to Australia. He and O`Meagher put on a good partnership of 31 for the third wicket but eventually Wright went for 14 off 20 balls with the total on 68. Captain Clare came to the crease and put on 27 for the fourth wicket together with O`Meagher but was bowled by West for 21 in the 18th over. Hobbs shared a partnership of 19 for the fifth wicket before being caught for 7 off 17 in the 23rd over. Next in was Michahelles for his first innnings ever. He faced five balls before being bowled by Jadwani and joining the duck race – three balls more than I faced to get the same score in my first game for the MCC. Blades and O`Meagher put on another 11 for the seventh wicket but Blades was caught O`Connor in the 27th over with the score on 127. Scott joined O`Meagher and they put on an unbeated 30 runs for the eight wicket, Scott doubling his aggregate and average for the season and O`Meagher cementing his place at the top of the batting statistics. Throughout the innings O`Connor had showed that Sarma cannot be complacent about his title of master sledger

Plentiful teas were provided by Jadwani and O’Connor and included some uncooked eggs, a definite first in the MCC catering history.

After the break, Scott and Blades opened the bowling for MCC and bowled their full allocations straight off, Blades taking two wickets and, after 12 overs, Effigies were 45 for 2 (MCC had been 56 for 2 at the same stage). Clare and Wright took over for three overs each, kept the run-rate below that required and after 18 overs Effigies were 80 for 2 (MCC had been 95 for 4 down). Kavi, fresh from his 3 for 2 last week came on with Garner but was tonked for 24 off 2 overs - cricket can be a soul destroying game. After 22 overs Effigies were 120 for 2 (MCC had been 109 for 4) so the captain brought on a very nervous secret weapon named Hobbs. He and Garner almost did it, Effigies losing another four wickets, one of them the Effigies top scorer, caught by Michahelles, a superb catch in his first game,  before scoring the winning run off 29.3 overs.

An enjoyable, friendly, but competitive match, with some wonderful sledging by O`Connor, finished at around 5.30 pm allowing us plenty of time to attack Helmut`s cool fresh before retiring to the Chinese Tower.

O`Meagher, 68*

Fudge, 5, caught

Garner, 6 bowled, 5.3 overs, 0 mdns, 37 runs, 1 wkt

Wright, 14, bowled, 3 overs, 0 mdns, 16 runs, 0 wkts, 1 catch

Clare, 21, bowled, 3 overs, 0 mdns, 14 runs, 0 wkts

Hobbs, 7, caught, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 12 runs, 2 wkts

Michahelles, 0, bowled, 1 catch

Blades, 6, caught, 6 overs, 0 mdns, 22 runs, 2 wkts

Scott, 12*, 6 overs, 0 mdns, 20 runs, 0 wkts,

Kavi, DNB, 2 overs, 0 mdns, 24 runs, 0 wkts.

MCC, 157 for 7 lost to Effigies, 158 for 6 by 3 wickets.

MCC MOM O`Meagher

MCC, 99 for 8, lost to MBCC, 230 for 11, by 131 runs.

MCC MOM Wright.

Maria Theresa did her stuff and captain Weston chose to field first, feeling our bowlers would contain them to an easily chaseable score as in the previous rounds of the competition. The opening pair of Scott and Blades did well, Scott being particuarly impressive with figures of 2 for 11 from his four overs. At the half-way stage after 10 overs Lufthansa were 35 for 2 and looking really concerned. Six bowlers were used to prevent the batters from settling, Wright and Ferguson being held back for the death bowling. There were a couple of lusty hits for six but, after 20 overs, Lufthansa were 101 for 7 and MCC feeling pretty satsfied with themselves.

Veser and Weston opened the batting for MCC, Veser facing a tight first over from Adlt. Weston faced three balls from Malik before mistiming the fourth ball, which went very high and deep to extra cover, and falling to a superb running catch by Ruwan thus re-entering the duck race. Sarma replaced him at the crease and together with Veser made batting look fairly easy and, at the half-way stage, MCC were 53 for 1 and well on the way to victory. Sarma went for 26 in the 13th over to be replaced by Ferguson who faced three balls before joining his captain in the duck race in the 14th over. Two balls later Veser went, caught in the deep for 33 to be followed, one ball later, by Wright and, after 15 overs, MCC were 74 for 5 needing another 28 runs off five overs to win. Furlonger and Fudge fought well and put on 18 for the sixth wicket taking the score to 92 after 18.2 overs, Fudge being caught in the deep for 12. Two balls later Hobbs was run out for a duck, going for a suicidal run trying to keep the scoreboard moving. Two overs to go and MCC needed 10 to win with only three wickets left. Gill faced three balls before being bowled for a duck and the score now 93 for 8 with three balls to go. The next ball Blades and Furlonger went for a second run that was too much for Furlonger so MCC were now 94 for 9 and two balls to go. Scott and Blades took another single and MCC finshed on 95 for 9 after 20 overs

Veser, 33, caught, 1 catch

Weston, 0, caught

Sarma, 26, caught

Ferguson, 0, bowled, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 26 runs, 2 wkts

Wright, 2, caught, 3 overs, 0 mdns, 15 runs, 1 wkt

Fudge, 12, caught

Furlonger, 6, run out

Hobbs, 0, run out, 1 over, 0 mdns, 4 runs, 1 wkt

Gill, 0, bowled, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 14 runs, 0 wkts, 1 catch

Blades, 2*, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 20 runs, 0 wkts

Scott, 0*, 4 overs, 1 mdn, 11 runs, 2 wkts

MCC, 95 for 9, lost to Lufthansa, 101 for 7 by 6 runs

MCC MOM Scott/Veser

The wonderfully named Sher Khan and Janan opened for Pak Orient to face MCC opening bowlers Gill and O`Connor. They batted as if there was no tomorrow and, after 9 overs, were 94 for 1. Jadwani had replaced O`Connor but his style was also very much to the batters liking – they even complained he was throwing but as they were tonking him for fours the protest was not taken seriously by the umpires.  After 12 overs, with the score on 112, the skipper brought on the first of his secret weapons and Hobbs bowled a modest first over going for only 7 runs. After the drinks break, Clare who had kept wicket and not given a bye or dropped a catch, was replaced by Turner who arrived just in time for the drinks. Sobek now joined Hobbs and his first four balls were “w”s - wicket, wide, wide, wide. Why on earth he was allowed another over no-one knows but the captain. However, the concatenation of the lightning fast Turner behind the stumps and the donkey-drop tempters from the two slow bowlers was simply breathtaking. From 129 for 2 after 15 overs, Pak Orient subsided to 168 all out after 26.4 overs, Sobek with a three-for, Hobbs with a six-for, including a hattrick. However the bleary eyed captain fell down on his counting and allowed Hobbs to bowl 7.4 overs when he should have been restricted to five. As so often in our matches the wide count was very high – the third highest score but the ball was very wet and slippery.

After teas MCC opened the batting with O`Meagher and Clare. Two wicket maidens later the score was 0 for 2 and Weston and Hobbs were at the crease. Weston went for 9 with the total score on10 but then Hobbs and Turner put on 23 for the 4th wicket, Turner facing 24 balls, keeping his end up in scoring his 3 runs. Next in was new member Anil Kavi who hadn`t played for two years. He decided the only prize worth going for so late in the season was the duck race and went after facing one ball. Now came the other secret weapon, Sobek, who put on 12 for the 6th wicket with Hobbs and another 12 for the seventh wicket with Gill. Gill went for 2 and in came Soundararajan, determined to improve on his performance of last week. Sobek went for 10, the only double figure score so far after the umpire tried desperately to find a reason why he couldn’t give hime out LBW and this introduced a nervous Jadwani to the struggle. He and Soundararajan put on 10 for the 9th wicket before Soundararajan fell for 4 and allowed number eleven, O`Connor, his chance to shine. This he did excellently remaining on 8 not out and putting on 30 for the 10th wicket in a partnership with Jadwani who top scored with 19.

MCC finshed on 89 all out after 26.4 overs so were soundly beaten but had a wonderful day with many memorable happenings. We sat around sampling Helmut’s cool fresh until 7pm then decided to go for one more at the kiosk in poofters alley. At 7:30 the heavens opened with torrential rain for almost two hours so we were forced to extend the one more into two more and so on while`st watching the rivirs of muddy water streaming past.

O`Meagher, caught

Clare, 0, caught, 1 catch

Weston, 9 bowled

Hobbs, 8, bowled, 7.4 overs, 1 mdn, 24 runs, 6 wkts, 1 hat-trick

Turner, 3, bowled, 4 stumpings

Kavi, 0, bowled

Sobek, 10, LBW, 5 overs, 0 mdns, 20 runs, 3 wkts

Gill, 2, bowled, 6 overs, 0 mdns, 54 runs, 1 wkt, 1 catch

Soundararajan, 4, caught

Jadwani, 19, bowled, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 31 runs, 0 wkts

O`Connor, 8*, 4 overs, 0 mdns, 38 runs, 0 wkts

MCC, 89 all out lost to Pak Orient, 168 all out, by 79 runs.

MCC MOM: Hobbs