Just when the game of cricket seemed to be slowly reaching a terminal stage of it's long and proud history, becoming a subject for newspaper debate rather than action on the field of play, it suddenly came to life again this week. After weeks of frustrating postponements due the continued wet
weather I finally saw my first ball bowled on Thursday 19th April.
The sun shone all day at the Leeds University ground at Weetwood where perhaps appropriately, in the season when a female cricketer appears on the front cover of Wisden and three England women's internationals are selected as members of the exclusive five Wisden cricketers of the year, it was a game between Leeds/Bradford university women and MCC women.
So in perfect cricketing weather a forty overs a side began shortly after twelve noon with what looked and sounded like a northern edition of the MCC with a good few Lancastrians in evidence, batting first. An uneventful opening partnership of 59 and a score of 94-3 promised a useful total, but when Rebecca Duckworth from Preston (a good Lancastrian name) was out for an excellent 56, things began to fall apart.
It was good to see some proper spin bowling from the University side, with the ball being given plenty of air which seemed to confuse the tailenders and the MCC innings disintegrated to 134 all out.
The home side started very slowly indeed and at the half way point of their innings it seemed as if the total would be well beyond them. However after losing five wickets a good partnership for the sixth wicket took them to an exciting victory with an over or so to spare. A sound start to the season but perhaps they need to sharpen up the fielding a bit against tougher opposition to come. Few complaints though for an excellent start to the season in pleasant surroundings with nothing to interrupt the quiet flow of the day.
Full marks to groundsman Richard Robinson for producing not only a wicket to play on but for his unstinting two hundred plus hours of work in getting everything prepared after the abandonment of the three day men's match with Derbyshire last week.
(Click on photographs to enlarge).
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