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Blues slide to dismal defeat

The Blues suffered their first defeat of the season on Monday in the Parks, against Oxfordshire, a minor counties side. Despite a promising start to the season so far, claiming an earlier triumph against Oxford Cricket Club to win the ‘Town vs Gown’ trophy, the Blues struggled to match Oxfordshire in both batting and bowling, and lost by 4 wickets.

Blues captain Raj Sharma (Mansfield) won the toss and chose to bat on a bitterly cold day, with blustery conditions, interspersed with the occasional sunny patch. In the overcast conditions, conditions were tricky, yet Oxford openers, Robin Thompson (Worcester) and Nick Meadows (St. John’s) put on 16 for the first wicket before Meadows edged a ball that seamed away to be caught behind. This brought Avinash Sharma (Green Templeton) to the crease, and together with Thompson, they proceeded to add 71 for the second wicket. The pair scored quickly, as the two ran superbly between wickets, putting pressure onto the fielders with a succession of quick singles. Sharma punished anything full in length with some crunching drives, whilst Thompson rotated the strike to allow his more aggressive partner the lion’s share of the strike. When spin was introduced into the attack in the tenth over, Sharma went on the offensive, looking to hit over the top at every opportunity, before he eventually holed out to mid on. However, from 87-1, Oxford collapsed to 113-5, as the Oxfordshire spinners bowled tightly to restrict the scoring. Rain arrived after 33 overs, and after a brief interlude, Dan Pascoe (Lincoln) and Tom Bryan (Worcester) joined forces to rebuild the innings, and the pair batted sensibly to add 93 for the 6th wicket, before Pascoe was caught off the penultimate ball of the Oxford innings for 55. This left Oxford with a below par score of 208-6 from their 50 overs, Bryan finishing unbeaten on 38.
Knowing that they had not batted as well as they might have done, the pressure was on the Blues to come out firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately, both Nick Buchanan (Hertford) and Andrew Shakespeare (Worcester) struggled with their line, and the Oxfordshire opener Kaufman took full advantage, as he raced to his fifty.

The rain returned after five overs of the Oxfordshire innings, and when play resumed, the county side were chasing a revised target of 186 from a total of 41 overs.
Kaufman then continued where he had left off before the break, before he was dismissed for 68 from 52 balls, the Oxfordshire openers having put on 102 for the first wicket. Oxford managed to exert a great deal of pressure on the opposition batsmen, with Sharma going for just 10 runs from his 6 overs and spinners Pascoe and Thompson picking up five wickets between them.

However, it proved to be a case of too little too late, the damage to Oxford’s chances having been done earlier in the match. The runs were knocked off in 38.3 overs, with Oxfordshire finishing on 187-6, to win by 4 wickets.
Despite the defeat, Blues captain Sharma praised the resilience of his team. ‘It’s always going to be tough when you don’t quite get enough runs on the board, but I thought we stuck at it really well.’

Although the end result was disappointing for the Blues, particularly as it was the first match of the season in the Parks, there is a lot of one day cricket still to be played between now and the Varsity match at Lord’s on the 4th July, and the Blues will look to bounce back this week when they play the Duke of Norfolk’s XI.

 

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