YC&AC take home the YC&AC Ashes with a well deserved win over the British Embassy
Words: Anthony Hague
It was great to see so many new faces at our first game of the season on 25 May. We welcomed a new YC&AC member from Australia, Jaideep, as well as 4 players from the Australian Embassy; Stuart, James, Sheldon and Matt. We faced our old foes, the British Embassy Cricket Club (BECC) and with so many Aussies in our squad, the match was looking more and more like an Ashes fixture. If so, the British Embassy were in trouble!
At 12:10 pm, our captain, Anthony Hague and the BECC captain, Richard Sciver completed the toss with YC&AC coming up trumps. Anthony elected to bat.
Like the Australian cricket team, our Victorian batting sensation, Anton Winston, got us off to a cracking start retiring at 30 off half as many balls, smashing 7 x 4s. The BECC players were looking startled. New South Welshman Anthony Hague (38) then took over, hitting 6 x 4s with 2 of those going over the BECC captain’s head. Queenslander Taiga Hague (26) then followed suit with some power hitting to take the score to 1/112. Maneesh (27) went on a scoring frenzy, thrashing the BECC bowlers all over the park, well supported by Stuart. After our allotted 25 overs the YC&AC had amassed a very competitive score of 160.
The BECC openers looked confident, but were sent packing in quick succession with Peter Gyves bowling one in his first over and the second falling to a nice catch from Stuart.
Rodney Pereira then strode to the wicket and took to the Gentlemen’s bowling but after some deft fielding and a direct hit from Taiga, we got our next wicket, with Dan Mendelssohn being run out. Yusuke Yamamoto and Rodney got the score moving but Maneesh bowled Yusuke and Stuart executed an amazing caught and bowled to remove the stubborn James Hardy. Jaideep, our latest recruit from Down Under, and Rich Freeman were so tight, the Embassy were struggling to score.
The score was inching ever closer to the target of 161 and Anthony turned once again to Peter, who removed the BECC captain for a Duck and former Japan cricket sensation Kenji Murata to a simple catch by Maneesh. The Embassy’s number 7 is a renowned big hitter and did hit a 6. He took one big swing too many however, lobbing one to mid-wicket where Anthony took a diving catch. After that, the tail was mopped up quickly, with the BECC all out for 142. Man of the match going to Peter, with the amazing figures of 6/18 off 5 overs. Well done Peter.
The YC&AC Ashes, rumoured to be an urn filled with the ashes of an old pair of Rich Freeman’s footy socks, were ours! It’s a pretty big urn! We all had fun and 9 members of the YC&AC team got a bowl, possibly a first.
We will play our next match against the British Embassy on 22 June. Please contact Anthony Hague or Yusuke Tomiogi if you would like to play.