OUCC Men’s Blues played Cambridge in the 180th University Match last week. On a green pitch, Cambridge won the toss and batted - motoring along to 103 runs without loss. However, a brilliant spell by Chris Mingard (19-9-29-4) was ably supported by Vignesh Venkateswaran (21-7-51-2) to reduce Cambridge to 200-8. Saqlain Choudhary picked up the final two wickets to bowl Cambridge out for 222 just after tea on the first day’s play. George Roberts and Max Kirkby skilfully negotiated the new ball to be 53-0 overnight. Unfortunately Kirkby fell just after the start of the 2nd day’s play, leaving Roberts and Vivek Narayan on Blues debut to build the innings.
Roberts made 61 before falling to the off-spin of Samir Sardana. This brought Josh Royan to the crease with Narayan, where both piled on the runs in quick time to make a partnership of 113 to leave the score 243-2. Cruelly, both Narayan and Royan were out for 92 - missing out on very well deserved centuries. Toby Brown and Saqlain Choudhary then looked to push the pace on to force a declaration. Brown scored his first Varsity century with 104*, while Choudhary recorded a quick-fire 40.
This set up captain Ben Swanson with a chance to declare at 446-6, a lead of 224 and leaving over a day and a half to bowl Cambridge out. On the 3rd morning, the task of bowling Cambridge out was taken on by incoming captain Justin Clarke, who bowled a masterful spell to remove Cambridge’s opener and number 3 in the space of two balls. Mingard, Clarke and Swanson chipped in with wickets through the middle of the innings to leave Cambridge 7 down. Cambridge rallied thanks to a great innings from Aaran Amin (92), but Saqlain Choudhary removed the danger man. This left Justin Clarke to take the final wicket of the innings to complete a brilliant 5-wicket haul and seal victory by an innings and 6 runs.
This capped off a great victory for the Men’s Blues, in which we achieved promotion to the top league of BUCS cricket, reached a national final, and won 3 of 3 Varsity matches against Cambridge.
Unfortunately, the Authentics just fell short in their 3-day Varsity Match despite stoic performances from Alec Wallis (match figures of 7-68) and Alec Kenningham (93 and 4-45).
