Knowing that the MCC pitch would play low and slow, we won the toss and decided to bat first. With last game’s collapse fresh in our memories, we were keen to survive the initial onslaught and then plunder as many runs as we could in the last 20 overs.
Unfortunately, although the plan to not lose too many early wickets worked well, with PG and then Dom hanging around against some tight, swinging bowling, we weren’t able to cash in as well as we should have after the drinks break. This wasn’t helped by the fact that MCC didn’t put any boundary cones out, meaning that we had to run nearly every run we scored. After the drinks break, we did lift the tempo, with first Dom, and then Liam working hard with the skipper, who was puffing and panting at the other end, not used to having to run two’s and the occasional three. By the end of our 40 overs, we had moved the score up to 4/100 – enough to bowl a side out with, but probably not enough to defend.
We came out firing after tea, having MCC in trouble at 3 for 37. This was courtesy of some great, tight bowling from Liam (2/13 off 8 overs), and a wicket to Puzzles (aka Alex Bell), who is quickly becoming our most reliable partnership breaker. With Brocky bowling really tightly at one end, and Rory teasing the batsmen at the other end, the MCC batsmen decided to knuckled down and put all their big shots away. Eventually, they grafted their score up to 101, only passing us in the 34th over.
Although it was disappointing to lose this one, there were some positive signs once again, especially in the bowling department. Special mention should be made of Huggy behind the stumps, as the pitch was very difficult to keep on, and he only let through two byes for the whole day.
With our next game in a couple of weeks back at Bulleen, I am certain we should be able to put our first win on the board.
Peter Weymouth
3rd XI Captain