MCCC Saturday 1st VS Crossbats (14-04-2007)
Won by 140 runs

With first day butterflies the MCCC Saturday team descended into the sleepy hollow of St Margarets to play their season warm up. We were happy to have new signing Jim “How is my hair” Paine and Jason “Bats like Kallis” Howarth. As this was a warm up we were fortunate to have the talents of the returning Andy “Im a Kiwi” Allen and Andrew “Cant take my tea” Jarrett from the league team. The ground was in excellent nick and the astro turf had been well groomed. Azam Malik and Mark B strode to wicket and got stuck into the opposition’s dollies and very short bowling which we hoped to return at a later stage (but they didn’t hang around long enough to attempt this). This kind of bowling will really be appreciated by the early season opposition on those sticky May wickets. Things looked good as we were 25/0 after the 3rd over and Mr Malik (trying to make up for Pakistan’s poor performance in the world cup) laid into the opening bowlers. We got off to a grand start and the first wicket fell at 61. However, the oppo didn’t realise the pandoras box they had just opened, as Jason “I can bat a bit” Howarth strode to the crease. Looking shaky in the first few overs, he got the engines running and then amassed 79 runs in not as many balls. At around the same time Azza got his first 50 of the season and then was promptly dismissed by another short delivery. However MCCC cannot take all the credit for the total we reached as Crossbats employed tactics that exceeded standard generosity (this unfortunately did not extend to an invitation to the pub!!!). They dropped 11+ catches and one would almost think that they had dealings with the Indian bookies to sponsor the classy shirts with names on their back. Jason and Tush “I have verbal diarohea” took the score to 220 odd off about 30 overs and things were looking quite good. After Jason departed, Tush and Simon “Im also a Kiwi” Watts dealt some lusty blows to get us to 250 odd for 5. The rest of the team attempted to get as much as possible and everyone chipped in getting 35 odd off the last 4 overs leaving us with a respectable total of 285. In the heat of the day there was some less than sportman like comments between our batsmen and the opposition, which slightly soured the game and probably contributed to the pub invitation which was MIA.

Sporting our new caps, the two Andy’s getting a warm up run for the league team pretty much ended the game in the first 6 overs. Andy Allen castled the 2 opening batsmen in the first over, and that as they say was that. The fielding in the outfield was a mixture of brilliant and something approach the Crossbats fiasco. The top scorer for Crossbats was Mr Extras, scoring a great 54 runs. This was a classy innings indeed and he lashed 4x’s off almost every bowler down the leg side. The backbone of the opposition came from the Mr Spiro and Mr Smith scoring 19 and 36 respectively, amassing 54 of the 89 runs off the bat in a test like approach. Mr Smith survived an unlikely incident when Tush “I will shout down the Ump” bowled the ball clean between the stumps but did not disturb the bails. Tush in his angst walked down to 3rd man and then thumped his forehead against the ground in disgust. The fielding moment of the match was when Jason “I can field a bit” Howarth ran from square leg dived to stop the ball and then threw the stumps down a-l-a Jonty Rhodes and had the batsmen well short. There were some wonderful muppet moments in the field epsecially when the V.C. , Mr Brown playing the ball away off his knee into the covers gifting the opposition with a run, this was followed up by the Skip, Mr Ware attempting to change directions like an Oil tanker at point and diving over the ball allowing the batsmen to run through. Andy Allen was the pick of the bowlers with 5 overs for 15 runs and 4 excellent wickets. He was ably supported by Andy J whom wrapped up the tail and had a chance at a hat-trick, which was dug out by the tailender. The rest of the bowlers performed well, but had a bit of a wayward time in wrapping up the opposition for 140 odd after 35 overs.

Man of the Match
Jason Howarth for a great batting performance, a solid bowling performance and a run out to boot. Well done son!

Name Batting Bowling
M.Bartram 23
A.Malik 50 3-2-2-0
J.Howarth 79
J.Ware 2
Tush 32 5-0-16-0
S.Watt 23 5-3-19-1
A.Allen 3 5.3-2-15-4
A.Jarrett 10 7-3-8-2
C.Brown 6
J.Paine 9 4-0-32-1
S.Vickery 2