Match Report

The delightfully named Far From the MCC Cricket Club visited us for a 20/20 thrash on a beautiful Thursday evening.  With the sun out and a firm wicket, David Cole was looking forward to winning the toss and batting in order to take advantage of the conditions and the ability to bowl at the opposition in the dark later.

The toss was lost and we were asked to bowl. Best plans and all that.  Young Jacob Ford-Langstaff opened from the road end bowling straight and full with a hint of swing.  He cleaned bowled one of the openers with his 6th ball.  The evergreen, Mike Simpson started from the cow field end with his twirlers that baffled and bamboozled.  The second opener departed soon afterwards.  At 10 for 2 off 4 overs MSCC were looking dominant but FFTMCCCC had plenty in reserve with the middle order taking an aggressive approach mainly in the direction of cow corner.  One batsman in particular enjoyed some good fortune mixed with some powerfully hit boundaries.

Richard Simpson, Wil Harris, Mark Ford-Langstaff and David Cole bowled with thought, guile and variety serving up a mixture of excellent deliveries, long hops, wides and wicket taking straight balls.  Wil especially made an impact with two wickets in his first over and finishing with three overall.

The champagne moment came towards the end of the innings in Jacob’s second spell when Mike Simpson took a magnificent one handed, left handed slip catch.  Much slapping of backs followed.

FFTMCCCC recovering well from a shaky start set us a target of 121 to win.  That’s six an over plus one for those interested in run rates.

Nick Moorman opened following a fine stint as keeper with Jay Mumtaz keeping him company.  Batting proved to be quite difficult with the ball passing the bat at regular intervals.  Nick and Jay remained unbeaten after 10 overs however, building a solid platform to allow the rest of us a free swing that would be required to up the aforementioned run rate which at roughly four an over left us with some work to do in the remaining 10 overs.

Nick’s wicket was quickly followed by my own before Jay was joined by Alex Silverman and the two of them set about an assault on the bowling in a bid to reach the finishing line in the remaining time.  Jay using his 3lb monster bat hit some lusty blows and Alex revealed an ability to find the gaps hitting some lovely boundaries on his way to an unbeaten 31.  When Jay fell with 8 balls to go for a fine 42 Wil Harris was promoted up the order to find the 15 required off the last few balls.  In the gathering gloom this was not an easy task with the fielders back on the boundary and despite making several good connections it proved to be just beyond us as we finished 7 runs short of victory.

Well played FFTMCCCC and we look forward to having you back next year.