Match Report - MCC vs Lyon CC (31/05/08)
Posted by wellsy on June 04 2008 22:27:57
Well, a first match of the season finally got played. That said, only seven of the eleven players appearing under the colours of the MCC were actually from this region but Sepp Blatter would have been pleased !!!
Thanks to Leigh and his minibus, we (Leigh W, Paul C, Andy W, Richard P, George P, Tony B and your correspondent) all travelled together and duly found the ground on time. Best thing we did all day although our repas later that evening at the Courte Paille in Pouilly was pretty jovial too. Biggish steaks were on promo plus Leigh was in cracking form !!!
Lyon started off well by winning the toss and electing to bat thereby consigning us to what we thought would be 30 overs of leather chasing. We did indeed chase a lot of leather but, pretty amazingly, we also managed to bowl out our opponents before the aforesaid 30 overs were over. In the 28 overs that they were at the crease Lyon still managed to accumulate the formidable total of 217 runs. Top-scorer was Martin with 52 no, but Geoff (33), John (30) and young Tom (28) all chipped in as well. We 'donated' them another 42 runs in extras. Ouch !!! We had to use three of our four loaned players from the large Lyon pool as bowlers, one of whom, Raju, collected 3 wickets. The rest were evenly spread around but bowl them out we did.
The break in innings saw Lyon doing their best to provide refreshments (it was hot - amazingly) and our thanks to them for this.
Our turn to bat was fairly predictable in its outcome. Our 'star' batting turn, Andy, fell to an unfortunate low-bouncing spitter and the rest of us followed him in fairly quick succession to the area marked off as pavilion. Top scorer for us was again 'Extras' showing amazing impartiality by chalking up 40 followed by Richard with 14 and François 11. Altogether we made 99 of the required 218 and batted - comme même !! - for 22 overs. Could have been a lot worse.
As you all know, Lyon's visit to us was cancelled due to inclement weather but I'd like to arrange another match against them in September. If some of our vedettes could be present we could give them a much closer and more enjoyable for all match. Thanks to those who did turn out and thanks too to Lyon for being good sportsmen.
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