Boys' 1st XI v MCC

Date: Tuesday 27th April

Venue: Home, 11.30 am. Meet 1030.

Team: Graham, Ikin, Murrall*, Cosford, Sanderson, Jacques, Fearns, Hodson-Walker +, Ahmed, Eldred, Moore.

Result: Won by 1 wicket

Match Report: MCC 273-6 (50 overs), Repton 276-9 (49.5 overs) (Murrall 123)

Wins against The MCC are not regular events. This was by far the youngest MCC side I have seen in my years in school cricket and there was no doubt they wanted to do well, especially those still under The MCC's probabtion period!

Despite a good start from Ahmed and Ikin, MCC were only one wicket down at lunch and certainly in the driving seat. Richard Murrall, Repton's Captain of Cricket in 2007, scored a hundred for The MCC and they finished on 273 on a good surface. I never felt we were as positive or proactive as bowlers as we could have been during this innings. We set good fields and changed the bowling well but even against good players, you have always got to have a plan and should never just be prepared to sit back and wait until they make an error.

This was the key point made at tea, and were staring down the barrell at 47-3 off 13. We had no option but to make the game happen and make sure we were still in it at 35-40 overs. Chris Murrrall and Mattt Sanderson set about that task and put on 70, before Murrall shared partnerships with Jacques and Fearns which edged us closer to the target and with 8 overs left, we needed 7 an over. At this point Murrrall upped the intensity further, passing three figures and taking us within 12 before top edging a pull shot for 123. This was an innings of high quality. A gritty and determined first 40, followed by a fluent 80 was produced at a time when it was needed most, and surely games when two brothers score hundreds in the same game for opposite teams are rare! With just one wicket remaining, Ahmed (who was the pick of the bowlers today) and Moore took us to 2 to win off 2 balls, before Ahmed lofted a drive to the long of ropes for 4.

This was a great game of cricket and illustrated how to stay in a run chase until close to the end. Playing the MCC is essentially playing Men against Boys but this challenge was dealt with well today in the most part, although there are still some key areas of our game to address before we take on Wellingborough on Saturday and three more good sides in the 20/20 competition on Sunday.

IMP