OUCC End of Season Report 2008

Oxford University v Oxfordshire, 05/05/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: Four Day Varsity Match

Heavy overnight rain left the playing area covered with a vast sheet of water. The waterlogged pitch made any prospect of play impossible.

Blues v Duke of Norfolk's XI, 08/05/08

Venue: Arundel
Fixture: Friendly

Result: Match Drawn

The annual trip to the delightful setting in the grounds of Arundel Castle nearly gave the Blues their first win of the season.

Oxford made a flying start with the first wicket putting on 95 runs in just 21 overs, thanks to Brendan McKerchar (44) and Ollie Sadler who was still going strong with 106 not out when the declaration came.

After an opening partnership of 54, the hosts batting then collapsed with eight wickets falling for a paltry 35 runs, and the Blues scented victory.

They were denied victory however by two Oxford UCCE players who were drafted in to the host’s side at short notice. Peter Young (61*) and Paul McMahon (47*) were still together when play ended, having put on an unbroken 87 run partnership.

Charlie Hill took 4-40, all four wickets coming in his first five overs.

Blues v Midlands CCC, 13/05/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: Friendly

Result: Midlands CCC won with two overs to spare

The Midlands C.C.C. brought a strong side to Oxford with all of their team playing for clubs in the Birmingham League, one of the strongest Premier Leagues in the country.

Batting first, Oxford were in trouble at the half way stage of their innings on 89 for 4, until an entertaining sixth wicket partnership of 114 between Spencer Crawley (50) and Charlie Hill (63) ensured a reasonable target was set for the visitors.

Midlands C.C.C. however paced their innings well to win the match with only three wickets down and two overs to spare

Blues v Harlequins, 17/05/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: One Day

Result: Quins beat blues on run rate

Harlequins were obliged to ‘borrow’ four current Blues players to complete their side, but even they could not prevent Brendan McKerchar from scoring 112 runs in 148 balls for the Blues in setting Harlequins 196 runs to win.

Harlequins were in a strong position with Byron Byrne (68 runs in 64 balls) leading the way when rain brought the match to a halt, with no further play possible.

Both Captains agreed to award the win to Harlequins by virtue of their superior run rate.

Oxford University v Cambridge University, 06/06/08

 Fixture: Twenty20

Result: Cambridge University won by 29 runs

In the inaugural Charles Russell Varsity Twenty20 match between the two Universities, a series of crazy run-outs, countless wides, big-hitting, and music kept the 1000 plus spectators well entertained.

Cambridge batted first and made 155 from their 20 overs, helped along by Oxford bowling 39 wides (4 of them reaching the boundary) and a nasty shoulder injury sustained by the Oxford wicket keeper Dan King in the first over, resulting in a trip to hospital and taking no further part in the match. Charlie Hill took 2-13 from four overs.

The Cambridge bowling was far more accurate, with Oxford failing to reach their target by 29 runs, despite a defiant 50 runs in 38 balls from Brendan McKerchar.

Oxford University v Free Foresters, 11/06/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: Friendly

Result: Oxford University won

In a tense affair at the Parks, there was victory for the Oxford University Blues in their match against Free Foresters, although it took until the penultimate ball of the game to achieve the required total.

The Blues won the toss in the One Day encounter and elected to field and quickly managed to make Free Foresters' life difficult dismissing both of the openers Young (12) and Abluwalia (2) before 30 runs were on the board. James Macadam continued to rip through the early batsmen (2-36) taking the wicket of Billingham with a single run on the board.

Free Foresters then managed to take control with the partnership of Mohammed (120no) and Von Rauenstein (63) putting on 178 to boost the away sides' total before a combination of Morse and Strachan managed to take the prize wicket of Von Rauenstein. Strachan hit a rich vein of form towards the end of Free Foresters' Innings ending with impressive figures of 3-48 to ensure the opposition finished their overs on a total of 241 for 6.

Coming into bat, the Blues were stable with an opening partnership of captain Oli Sadler (71) and Alex Ball (66) making the task seemingly comfortable. However, having already troubled Oxford University with the bat, all rounder Von Rauenstein continued to plague the home side with the ball (2-44) with Ball and Haslam both falling to his bowling. Free Foresters used a total of eight bowlers and all managed to trouble the Blues run rate to ensure the game went down to the wire before Spencer Crawley pushed the Blues over the finish line. (Match Report by Jamie Brooks)

Blues v Cambridge, 17/06/08

Venue: Lord's
Fixture: One Day Varsity

Result: Blues defeated

In this annual encounter at Lords, Oxford’s bowling contributed to their downfall and a Cambridge victory by conceding 42 wides in allowing Cambridge to run up a formidable total from their 50 overs.

Oxford were always behind the required run rate despite the efforts of Neil Kruger (81 runs off 71 balls) and Henry Haslam (43 runs off 38 balls), with the margin of defeat being close to the aforementioned wides bowled by Oxford.

Blues v London CCC, 10/06/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: 50 over,  15 over, 20 over

The Blues were scheduled to play London County C.C. over two days at the University Ground, Marston on 9th and 10th of June, but recent heavy rain had flooded parts of the playing area leaving the ground unfit for play.

Instead, to give the Blues much needed match practice, three separate games were played at different venues over these days, all of which resulted in confidence building victories for the Blues.

In the first match, the Blues were indebted to Dhruva Bhaskar (45) and Neil Kruger (48) in making a modest 179 all out, which proved sufficient as the opposition failed by 19 runs to reach their target, with Lewis

Dingle taking 4-25 from his 7.2 overs.

In the first of two matches played in The Parks, the Blues ran up an impressive score in their allotted 15 overs, with Neil Kruger (61 runs off 37 balls) leading the way.

The visitors then collapsed from a challenging 98-2 off 10 overs, losing their last 8 wickets for just 19 runs with Jonty Strachan taking 4-30 from his 3 overs.

In the final game played as a Twenty20 match, Neil Kruger was again in the runs with 94no off just 66 balls.

The visitors nearly pulled off a victory, failing by only six runs, with Ollie Sadler being the top Blues wicket taker with 4-28 from his four overs.

Blues v MCC, 25/06/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: 3 day Friendly

Result: MCC won by 4 wickets

In their last outing before the Four Day Varsity Match, the Blues had a useful workout against the M.C.C.

In a match of 3 declarations, Brendan McKerchar (155) and Charlie Hill (133*) shared a fifth wicket partnership of 156 in Oxford’s first innings, whilst the Blues used eight bowlers in the M.C.C's first innings before the visitors declared 125 runs behind the Oxford score.

Ollie Sadler (60) and Tom Howell (80) put on 134 runs in an opening partnership in Oxford’s second innings enabling the Blues to declare to leave the M.C.C. a target of 320 to win which the visitors achieved in an exciting finish with three overs to spare.

Oxford University v Cambridge University, 04/07/08

Venue: The Parks, Oxford
Fixture: Four Day Varsity

Cambridge University 386 all out in 135.4 overs and 255-4 dec in 67.0 overs

Result: Match drawn. 

Oxford University and Cambrige University played out a tight and competitive draw in this year's Four Day Varsity match, hosted at the University Parks.

The memorable moments of this annual Varsity match encounter were in the opening session before lunch on the first day and in the last session after tea on the 4th and final day’s play.

In between it was a grimly fought battle for supremacy with the scoring rate rarely exceeding three runs per over.

Day One

At lunch the Cambridge innings was in disarray at 107-5, the fifth wicket having fallen for a mere 85 runs.

From then on a record all time sixth wicket partnership (for Cambridge) of 216 between Akbar Ansari (193) and Nick Whittington (83) enabled the Light Blues to finish the day on 303-6.

Ansari was only 18 runs short of the record individual score for Cambridge in a Varsity match, set by G.Goonesena in 1957.

Day Two

Cambridge continued batting for a further 78 minutes before being all out for 386 with Ed Morse finishing with the impressive figures of 6-102.

Oxford batted for the rest of the day to finish on 141-2, with 2 hours 20 minutes having been lost to 4 separate stoppages for rain.

Day Three

After skipper Ollie Sadler had departed for a gritty 77 runs, the rest of the batting fell away with the last eight wickets falling for just 96 runs, including a last wicket partnership of 37 runs between Tom Froggett and Ed Morse during which the follow on was averted.

Ansari took 4-50 for Cambridge.

At the close of play Cambridge had reached 183-3 in their 2nd innings to take a healthy lead of 305 runs.

Day Four

Cambridge batted on for a further 34 minutes in the morning session, with Ansari (80*) again to the fore, before declaring to leave Oxford with a formidable target of 378 to win in approximately 103 overs.

After a cautious start, Oxford had reached 189-3 at tea, with a draw looking the likely result.
However, a magnificent knock from Neil Kruger (172 in 261 balls) nearly brought Oxford a remarkable victory until he was caught on the boundary with 41 runs needed and 5 overs remaining.

This proved just out of reach with Oxford still needing 23 runs with three wickets left when stumps were drawn.