ICUCC beaten by UCL

With his 100% winning record as skipper on the line, Vignesh Venkateswaran once again took up the reins of captaincy as he led the ICUCC 1st XI to face off against arch-rivals UCL, in a nail-biting London derby.

Conditions could not have been more perfect; it was warmer outside the scorebox than inside it. Once again featuringa bowling-heavy line-up, Imperial won the toss and elected to bat first, with the hope of using scoreboard pressure to our advantage. Openers Iain Stobbs and Faris Rehman took a liking to the UCL opening bowler, creaming him for boundaries down the ground. Faris’s stay was a short one, however, giving a simple catch, which brought Faris Siddiqui to the crease. The situation unfortunately got the better of him as he fell prey to a rash shot, attempting to heave a 6 to cow-corner off his first delivery, only to find the ball nestle comfortably in the hands of mid-wicket for a golden duck. With the situation dire, the skipper arrived at the crease and proceeded to rebuild the innings with Iain. UCL’s opening bowler went through a torrid time, leaking 35 runs off his 6 overs. Boundaries arrived at regular intervals and the situation looked to have been salvaged for a time, until Vignesh played all around a full delivery and was cleaned up for 21 off 30. Siddharth Kohli, so often the unsung hero with the bat, came to the middle, but all he managed to do was starve Iain of deliveries before giving a tame catch.

I was in at no. 6, and the situation became even more desperate when Iain fell soon after to an excellent in-dipper for a solid 38 off 37. This left two new batsmen, Nitin Nihilani and myself at the crease with the bowler in form steaming in. After some poor showings with the bat, I managed to play myself back into some sort of form with a quickfire 14 off 15 including 2 flicked boundaries over deep square leg and a tennis forehand to a slow bouncer, before being run-out attempting a tough single to get back on strike, with Nitin finding it nearly impossible to get bat to ball. With the tail needing to wag, an in form Ganesh “Big G” Kumar walked in. He found the going tough as well, wafting at thin air outside off-stump on multiple occasions along with Nitin. Nitin was eventually put out of his misery, getting bowled by no less than Du Plessis himself for 1 off 36.

A pre-match cigarette and beer didn’t help JohanRekers much as got out as soon as he went in, bowled for a golden duck, bringing debutant Rajan Bhambra to the crease. The fact that he was holding a bat for the first time in years began to show, and he was lucky not to give an edge on his first few deliveries faced. Fortune favours the brave, however, and he managed to streak an edge past slip to the 3rd man boundary. He, too, eventually fell for 7. Farhan Huq was last man in and lasted 4 deliveries before being given out LBW for a duck. At the other end, Big G had made his way to 17 off 35 before running out of partners. Imperial hence folded for 128 all out, probably around 22 runs short on a turning track.

After tea, the boys took to the field, desperate to defend 128 and the skipper’s winning record. Iain Stobbs found himself in the unenviable position of having to open the bowling after opening the batting as well. Out of concern for the opposition batsmen’s safety, he decided to forgoe pace, instead relying on some nifty swing and a 5-step run up. The plan worked as he immediately produced some healthy edges, with Big G taking a smart running catch over his shoulder at backward point to dismiss one of the UCL openers.

Big G himself came on from the other end, and built up some pressure with Iain. The batsmen were not letting up, however, and eventually the off-spin of Siddharth was introduced. Vignesh brought himself on from the other end as well, and the 2 spinners set about trying to rein in the run rate. Despite some excellent bowling for most of the over, there was always one loose ball per over that was dispatched to the boundary, which did not help the cause seeing as the asking rate was only just above 3. Barring tough chances being put down by keeper Faris Rehman and Nitin, as well as a few comical moments with Faris Siddiqui allowing a boundary through his legs and Johan diving over a ball a few feet from him, Imperial’s fielding display was impeccable, with even clean shots stopped in the in-field, culminating in a massive build-up of pressure on the batsmen.

Eventually they cracked, as Siddharth and Vignesh tore through the UCL batting line-up by themselves. 2 of Siddharth’s 4 wickets found Vignesh (at that point looking like he could pluck a fly out of the air) at short midwicket, and 1 of Vignesh’s 2 was taken by Siddharth at short extra-cover. Nitin chipped in with a wicket as well. In a tense finish, UCL were 8 wickets down and needed 3 more runs to win, but the returning Iain gifted them with a no-ball full toss off the first delivery of his second spell, which was sent to the boundary, giving UCL the victory by 2 wickets with 12 overs to spare. It was a disappointing loss for ICUCC and a first loss for Vignesh as captain, but UCL will always remember the day when a second-string Imperial team made a 128 target seem more like 328.