Universities cricket update

Posted by Tony Hutton

I find it very hard to believe the chain of events described by John Winn in his efforts to find cricket this week, but perhaps I can fill in a little bit of detail and hope very much that he has better luck at Riverside on Saturday.

Yesterday started with a very upset Dave Hodgson phoning me from Kirkstall. A very bad case of deliberate vandalism had occured overnight. Much of the square, including the wicket for today's scheduled semi-final between Leeds Met and Loughborough had been badly damaged by lots of broken glass and oil.

Dave asked me to pass the word on to any likely spectators that the game had been re-arranged at very short notice to the Pudsey Congs ground not far away. I tried to do this, managing to track down one or two, including John Winn, and sending e-mails and put a warning on the blog.

Then I went off to Weetwood for day two of the game between Leeds/Bradford and Cambridge. Many of the regulars on hearing the news decided they would spend the morning at Weetwood and then go to Pudsey where the game was scheduled to start at 12.30. I went off home for my lunch and was surprised to see Brian Sanderson arrive with the news that the game at Pudsey was now off, Loughborough not being prepared to play on a newly cut wicket, with short boundaries and a reduced number of overs.

So fortunately we returned to Weetwood and stopped all but one, as well as John Winn, from making a fruitless journey. The rules of the competition apparently say that if the game is not played on the due date it should be replayed on the scheduled reserve date (Friday) with a change of venue to the original away team's ground. We will no doubt finish the story in due course and report which team gets through to next Wednesday's final at the Parks, Oxford.

Meanwhile back at Weetwood, in a different competition, a place in a Lord's final could be at stake. If Cambridge could win they might make it to the final on June 27th to face Durham. That all depended on how Cardiff got on against Oxford today in their match. If Cardiff won they would go through with lots of other permutations if games were draw.

The position was that Leeds/Bradford made a creditable 302 yesterday in this their final match of the season. It was a good recovery from 205-7 against some excellent spin bowling from Ansari (who played for Surrey in a T20 game on TV the night before), and Lotay. Unfortunately whatever happened today, Leeds/Bradford would finish bottom of the six team league.

Cambridge started well with an opening stand of 96 between Ackland (93) and Hughes (32). Then as John suggested one or two dubious umpiring decisions seemed to upset the Cambridge batsmen. None more so than Ansari, given out lbw for a duck. Park soon followed victim of a silly run out but the Lancastrian Woolley rallied the cause with a fine 48. Wickets fell regularly at the other end and when the rains finally caused the game to be abandoned, Cambridge were left stranded on 229-7 still 74 short of their target.

Their only remaining hope of the Lord's final now rested on Cardiff being rained off for two days against Oxford. Five points for a draw would leave Cardiff one point behind Cambridge, but if sufficient play was possible for them to get only two bonus points that would see Cardiff through. Complicated isn't it?

To add to the confusion this morning, no result from Cardiff appeared on the MCCU website. The only clue was the fact that the one day match between the two teams on Monday had been abandoned without a ball being bowled. All will no doubt be revealed in due course. Stand by for the next thrilling instalment and spare a thought not only for John Winn but for Kirkstall Educational cricket club.