Imperial overcame stiff competition this Saturday from Essex, Kingston and East London Universities to reach the second leg of the indoor tournament. The six IC players were amongst the most experienced in the Cricket club and put up a spirited performance that ensured victories in all three of their matches.

The IC team turned up so fashionably late we almost missed the first game played against Essex University and vice-captain Viran Parmar had to skip his mandatory Burger King stop. After winning the toss the Jack Black (or Shneebly as called by the tournament organiser) look-a-like Essex Captain put IC in to bat. This immediately turned out to be a big mistake as James Musgrave scored a quick fire 27 before retiring. Former skipper Ankit Patel scored a further 26 before retiring and Ahsaan Ismail chipped in with a further 18. James and Ankit returned to wreak further havoc, stretching the score to a whopping 133 after 12 overs. The high quality pace attack provided by Viran Parmar, Navin Surtani, Ankit Patel and Ahsaan Ismail restricted Essex 101 all out. Viran and Navin provided extremely tight opening spells with Ahsaan and Ankit ensuring that Essex were shut completely out of the game.

After a quick Subway lunch – with Musgrave loving his first ever footlong and Ankit spilling half of his – and a long discussion about England’s Ashes chances captain Matt Tarr won the toss and elected to bat once again in the second match against Kingston. All 6 of the batsmen contributed to IC’s total with Viran and Ankit going past 25. Defending 125, IC’s bowlers got even better during the second match with Viran Parmar actually bowling a maiden- an extreme rarity indoors. Kingston finished on 102-5 and the IC team marched on to the play-offs.

Due to the mismanagement of the tournament, IC were forced to play their third and most crucial game against East London, who incidentally knocked IC out last year, immediately after their second game. The fatigue began to show as Matt’s decision to bat first again began slowly. The East London bowlers bowled very tightly and made good use of the swinging ball. Fatigue showed and IC got to a modest 103 all out thanks in large to Viran with 34. IC bowlers knew they had to bowl and field out of their skins; and how they did. Viran and Navin provided another fantastic start to the innings knocking over 3 of the East London batsman in two overs. James then used his variations to account for another. However, the runs were not entirely stopped and at just under the half way stage the score stood at 48⁄3. Shortly after, Matt introduced Ahsaan and Ankit into the attack which helped to reduce the East London run rate.

Ultimately it all boiled down to the last 3 overs of which East London needed 33 runs. Ankit bowled a fantastic over knocking over the fifth East London batsman; and when this was followed by a further tight over by Ahsaan to put IC on the brink. IC had achieved victory by 21 runs and the team celebrated by going to a nearby pub where they were treated to some unique karaoke by the Essex locals with Ahsaan chatting up a very drunk Essex blonde named Denise – the only failure in an otherwise successful day for the players.