MCCC vs Morden CC Saturday 15 September 2007
Morden Corinthians eager to finish well
By Steve O Ramsadeo

[Match Photos]

Morden Corinthians CC ended the 2007 season convincingly with a six-wicket away win to Morden CC.

The local derby between the two sides usually guarantees an extra competitive edge – especially as Corinthians were once part of Morden CC - and a keenly contested game of cricket.

With an all-round focused performance, the Corinthians Saturday team looked the hungrier side, as they fielded purposefully and bowled economically to restrict Morden CC to 154 in an innings which was uncharacteristically lethargic throughout the 40 overs.

Azam was the pick of the Corinthians bowling, claiming 3 for 31 in his 8-over spell. Taking to the crease, Corinthians’ agile running between the wickets put the home team under pressure from their first over. Flourishing knocks from Jason H (54), Nick (26), Azam (33) and Mark B (22) guided the visitors to a surprisingly comfortable – but well earned - victory.

Man-of-the-Match
Azam Malik.

Muppet Moment
Angry Alan’s ‘flash’ back-hand-style throw, as laughably the ball defeating the intended trajectory to the stumps only to do a tragic curve out of his hand to find the red thing on its way to the boundary – you had to be there!!! Our ‘Angry’ Man himself, however, was spared his blushes with some furious and economic pace bowling, conceding only 10 runs in his eight overs.

MCCC vs Old Ruts 5ths
Saturday 1st September 2007

Another unseasonably hot day greeted the mighty ducks as they arrived at Dundonald Rec for the visit of Old Ruts, a popular fixture against a nice bunch of guys. Nice enough to let us win? We'll see. Also, we welcomed back John Lepp and Fergal Diver from long term injuries, hopefully they'd hold up for the full game.

The toss was made and MCCC went into bat.

Paul Low and John Lepp opened up with an array of fine attacking shots, but eventually Paul was bowled for 12 off 8 balls. Amit Khare entered the crease, looking like he meant business. John departed soon after, adjusted caught behind when in fact the only thing he hit was the floor. Never mind, Imran joined Amit at a slightly precarious 33-2.

What followed was an exhibition of batting excellence. Imran the more restrained of the two, while Amit wanted to hit every ball into the stratosphere. Balls disappeared left, right and centre. Catches were dropped, singles were pinched, it was breathless stuff. Amit finally perished, bowled on 49. Despite his constant attempts to rewrite the scores, it remained on 49!

Imran then shepherded the tail through to the close and some lusty blows took us to 201 off our alloted overs. Our second highest tally of the season, this would be enough right?

We opened up with intent and an early breakthrough was had as the skipper bowled one of the openers. Soon after Amit took a caught and bowled, then bowled the new batsmen to leave them three down. Sitty pretty, right?

Well, it was round about now that the wheels started to fall off. Fergal was clearly struggling with his injured knee and John is never the most mobile and was showing signs of rustiness. The opposition seized on this and turned ones into twos (or threes in some cases).

The pressure was on and they crept back into the game. At the halfway point Simon Hawkins came on as sub fielder for Fergal. At the end of his first over a sharp point went to Simon at backward square, which was almost taken superbly. Instead it was downed and in the process Simon dislocated his thumb (then popped it back in himself!). We're now down to 10 fielders, bad to worse.

After 20 minutes of rest, Fergal reintroduces himself and we're back to 11 men, things improve from there on as Clifford and Ahmad pick up wickets to bring them to 5 down. Then the lefthander (he of thumb disclocating fame) offers a simple chance to short square leg, which is inexplicably downed by our limping hero.

After that we never quite looked like defending the total and Old Ruts got home with 7 balls to spare. The leftie finishing on 87* (it was an outstanding knock)

Man of the match

Imran for his 66*

MCCC vs Reigate Priory
Saturday 28th July 2007

Fresh from last week's victory, the boys turned up excited and ready to roll. The skipper lost the toss and was invited to have a bowl.

Last year we beat Reigate Priory in a thriller, so the tails were up as we took to the field. Our spirits were dampened somewhat by a good opening partnership which was eventually broken by the skipper who bowled the aggressive number 2 bat.

Reigate rebuild after this and put together another good partnership which was ended thanks to an inspired bowling change by the skipper (maybe) which saw first Girish (ct Vikram) then David Clifford (lbw) pick up their numbers 1 and 3 respectively.

Unfortunately, there followed another good partnership and Cliffo tried several combinations with little success. Eventually he took the ball himself and duly took two wickets, the first with an excellent sprawling return catch, the second with a slightly more dubious edge onto the stumps from a well directed short ball.

Again, we had an opening but couldn't capitalise. Reigate closed on 186-8 with late wickets for Theo Moore (ct B Clifford) and the outstanding Raj Sharma who put in his best bowling performance for the club.

Difficult task, but on a warm day with a quick outfield, this was chaseable. How would Morden's batting hold up?


Vikram fell early in reply, edging behind in the first over. This brought Tom "What's a pinchhitter?" Rebane to the crease to join Girish. A more chalk and cheese partnership you could never find. Tom lauched the ball to all parts, well more accurately he launched it through midwicket regularly. Sadly the opposition changed the field after his first three balls went FOUR, TWO, FOUR and he had to deal in singles until his demise on 16 (new high score).

Morden wobbling at 31-2 and worse was to come as their outstanding young legspinner came on and ripped through the middle order taking the key (?) wickets of Ewan, Theo and David. Token resistance from Rob Sadler and Martin Ridgeway followed but soon we were 88-8 and the game was up. Raj Sharma provided some late entertainment weighing in with 13 in half as many balls. The skipper entered the fray to face the last ball and tried to hit the road, instead he picked out wide cow corner.

MCCC finish all out on 111, with Girish contributing a great 53*.

Man of the match
Girish Patel, great knock in tough conditions.

Bowling figures
B Clifford 8-0-22-3
R Sharma 8-2-14-1
D Clifford 8-0-32-1
G Patel 8-0-38-2
H Patel 2-0-30-0
V Sangar 4-0-24-0
T Moore 2-0-16-1

MCCC vs Turners Hill (away)
Saturday 14th July 2007

Brian's team departed for Sussex feeling confident, despite not having won a game this season. Why? Because in our last three fixtures against today's opponents we recorded two wins and a draw (in which the weather saved our opposition from a third consecutive defeat).

Captain Clifford lost the toss, but was invited to bat by the opposition skipper. The logic apparently being to ensure a full day's play, as we were stronger than them. Looking good.....

Fast forward thirty minutes. MCCC are 8 for 4. Another thirty minutes? 37-8. Another thirty minutes? We're about to take the field defending FIFTY NINE.

So, what happened? Well, on a tough pitch the opposition bowled well and we disintegrated. Simon Hawkins watched the first ball be given as a wide, then cut the first legal ball onto his off stump. Ewan Cotter saw the gremlins and decided to play a shot a ball. The fouth of which found mid off. Amit Khare got a funny bounce and popped up a caught and bowled. Adam Walker was run out by first slip. The list goes on!!

Credit to Vivek Sarohia who played one of the ballsiest knocks I've seen for the club, he stuck around to make 21 off 85 balls before being the last man out. A little resistance was mustered by the tail (Clifford, Sharma, Moore).

All in all, a right pig's ear of a batting effort.

Could we defend 59? Well, in a word "no". The bowlers all recorded economical figures, but with such a small total to attack it's no surprise that the opposition decided on playing for not outs! Richard Wainer picked up two wickets and bowled beautifully. An 8 wicket defeat in 14.4 overs.

Happily, there was enough time to have an 11 over knock about afterwards. We also contrived to lose this, by one run! Amusingly we scored more runs in our 11 overs than we managed in the 30 overs our real batting "effort" dragged on for.


Man of the match

Vivek Sarohia. Although it's the sort of game where I'm almost loathe to give a MOTM award!

Highlight of the day

Amit Khare causing a kerfuffle by eating a spare packet of crisps. Turns out they belonged to the opposition's kids. Not impressed, Amit is sent off to the nearest shop to buy some replacements. Nearly 90 minutes later he arrives back with said crisps.