Seven of Imperial Cricket’s finest journeyed down to a barn in Hertfordshire last week Saturday only to come away with a moral victory after losing both of their games.

The fact that everyone made it to the barn in Hertfordshire alive was a positive start to the day given the driving skills of vice-captain Majid Ali. When asked about whether the kit-bags were stacked too high in his car, he responded with the words: “I don’t need to see, that’s fine.”

The first match against Middlesex started off steadily for Imperial and the game was evenly poised.Two swift runouts of ‘keeper Vishal Nair and tokenwhite-guy Iain Stobbs turned the tide against IC, but the screw was really turned when the Middlesex albino Sikh off-spinner went for a miserly fifteen runs in his of three overs. A competitive 114 was posted in the end with signifi cant contributions from v/c Majid “extra-hot Nando’s” Ali and Jayanth “I lost my lunch” Ganapathy. IC came out with aggression in the field but calm batting from the opposition and a drop in our own fielding standards meant an easy win for Middlesex.

One change was made for the second game against UCL (or Euston Tech.) with Iain “token” Stobbs making way for Hasit “hungover from Halloween” Mehta. Majid used the fuel from his Nando’s the previous night and 25 cans of coke to attack his ULU team-mate Willy Pete who opened the bowling for Euston Tech. Ably helped by Vishal and Navin Surtani, the innings finished on 143 from twelve overs. Once again though, the opposition batting was calm. Despite a caught and bowled from Navin along with some direct hit run-outs from skipper Ahsaan and Hasit, Euston Tech managed to win in a tight contest.

Even though the inexperienced team had been defeated, it gave the newer and younger guys a lot of invaluable experience to take forward for next year’s tournament. Positives were taken and the weaknesses of the performances analysed with a view to coming into the 2012⁄13 tournament a better prepared and more experienced unit.