MCC and Grace (Road)

posted by John Winn

In 1994 as part of their centenary celebrations The Nidderdale Amateur Cricket League played an MCC XI at Dacre Banks. Sine then the match has been an annual fixture and this year was hosted by Burton Leonard CC near Ripon. As far back as 1850 the cricketing activities of BLCC were recorded in the 'Leeds Intelligencer' and a photograph in the pavilion shows 'Burton Leonard and Copgrove' as winners of The Ripon League in 1897. This league was short lived and the Burton Leonard club itself was dissolved in 1929 but reformed in 1947 and joined the NACL in 1949.They moved to their present ground in 1966 and currently run two teams in the league with the first eleven mid table in Divison One.
I was part of a decent crowd that assembled for the 11:30 start on Wednesday with MCC invited to bat in a 'time match', something of a rarity in club cricket these days.The league eleven was captained by Olly Uffindall, captain of champions elect, Ouseburn CC.
Star performer for MCC was former Leicestershire player Nick Ferraby, who plays his league cricket for Oxford CC in the Home Counties Premier League and is also part of the Cambridgeshire team that will contest the Minor Counties Championship final at March CC next week, when their opponents will be Devon.Ferraby's hundred helped MCC post 275 for three when they declared after 55 overs.The local men made a good start in their pursuit of this total reaching 55 for 1 at tea. I left at this point and do not know the outcome. The result will, I think, appear on the MCC website in due course.
Much of my afternoon was spent in the company of the doyen of pcws, Ian Cockerill who I last saw at Darlington in June. I was delighted, and amazed,to be able to inform Ian of two leagues in North Yorkshire of whose existence he was unaware, namely the Langbaurgh League and the Cleveland League, expect to see Ian pop up on some of those grounds in 2012!
After much humming and hawing since Tony posted the fixture I decided earlier in the week that I would yesterday take the train to Leicester for the first day of the Under 17 Final between Yorkshire and Surrey at Grace Road.Tony reported fully on Yorkshire's semi final victory over Warwickshire at Weetwood last month and he noted that some of Yorkshire's followers feared the final would be at either Canterbury or The Oval. One can see why they might have thought this for last year's final between Middlesex and Nottinghamshire WAS played at Canterbury and of course the Oval is Surrey's home ground, but the Under 17s never play there.
Signalling difficulties at Doncaster delayed my arrival at Grace Road until after twelve at which point Surrey's openers were still at the crease to the dismay of the Yorkshire contingent who were basking in lovely sunshine. The format for this competition is unusual but I think a good one with each side having 100 overs for their innings spread over two days. Not surprisingly the crowd was a small one with the number of Yorkshire supporters just shading those from Surrey.
Early in the afternoon it looked as though Surrey might post 400 but gradually the Yorkshire bowlers reined them in and Surrey would have been very disappointed, when after tea, they could not get he run rate above 3.4 per over. For sixteen year olds fielding for almost a full day in hot conditions must be very taxing but Yorkshire did not let their standards slip and kept boundaries to a minimum. I left at the fall of the eighth wicket and ten minutes later was joined at the bus stop by Jennifer Ellison who told me that Surrey had been all out for 327. Jennifer, like most of the Yorkshire contingent, was staying over in Leicester for the second day and they will feel optimistic about Yorkshire's chances. Signalling difficulties at Doncaster having been overcome my return journey was a smooth one and I was back in York by 8:30, pleased that I had overcome my prevarication and made the trip.