Posted by Tony Hutton
Those of you who have tried to access the BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) website have my sympathies. Totally confusing, sometimes misleading, you really do need a degree in hard sums and joined up writing to understand it.
Along with one or two other diehards I turned up on Wednesday to see Leeds Met University play Northumbria University in the quarter final of the men's trophy national knock out at Kirkstall's ground in Leeds.
On arrival I found groundsman Dave Hodgson cutting the grass, without any sign of cricketers. When he saw me, he come over to apologise. The game was off, Northumbria could not raise a team and had conceded the game. Without any other day time cricket in the area, it meant a long wait for evening league cricket if the weather stayed fine.
The one plus point is that Leeds Met will now be at home at the same venue on Wednesday 15th June in the semi-final against Loughborough, who did play and beat Leeds University to prevent the chance of a local derby. The other semi-final is between Oxford and University of Wales in Cardiff. This final will be played at the Parks in Oxford on Wednesday 22nd June.
The strange thing is that the aforementioned BUCS website today gives scores for the game that never took place. Leeds Met 251 beat Northumbria 205. Did they in fact play at some secret location ? Or more likely cannot the website cope with a conceded match and has to make up a fictitious score. Who knows ?
The other good news to emerge today was that Leeds Met's women's side had a convincing win down at Exeter by 199 to 88 if the website is to be believed.
This means they will also play Loughborough, but in the final of their competition which takes place at the Lord's nursery ground on Monday 27th June.
On the same day the top teams of the MCC Universities championship table (the big boys) will meet on the main ground at Lord's in a one day final of what is a two day competition throughout the season. All the six teams in contention have one more match to play next week, when Leeds/Bradford, who seem likely to finish bottom of the league, entertain Cambridge. Looking at the current table it seems as though Cardiff will play either Durham or Cambridge.
The final piece in this very tortuous jig saw is the MCC Universites BUCS one day competition, which has a final at the Getty ground at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire also on the 22nd June. Again the final round of matches take place next week and no this one day competition does not have a two day final !
Top dogs in this table are also Cardiff, with Loughborough, Oxford and Cambridge likely to be the other semi-finalists. After all that I think I need to lie down in a darkened room until it is time for my daily dose of evening league cricket.
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