Taking the long walk out through the Long Room at Lord’s is a dream that the vast majority of cricketers can barely even imagine. For those of us who thrive in the college, or village, scene it seems a whole world away. But for the elites of Oxford University Cricket Club, it’s an opportunity that comes around once a year. With just 20 overs each, barely more than three total hours, you’re tasked with leaving an imprint on a ground that’s seen World Cup victory, Ashes victory, and 111 years of passing greats. Joe Root, Tammy Beaumont, Jimmy Anderson have all taken to those same steps, perhaps even with the same feelings that pulsate through our athletes now. Cricket is a game of big players, and even bigger moments – where one player can come in and take over a game almost single-handedly. For this year’s Varsity matches, which saw two pretty convincing wins split between the universities, Oxford and Middlesex’s Hannah Davis starred with a stunning 55 off 37 with the bat; and 4 for 9 off of her four overs.
The women opened the day with an 11am game, and Oxford headed out to bat first. Hannah Sutton and Annys Thirkell-Jones played their way in patiently, allowing Cambridge to rack up the extras with some loose bowling. But as Cambridge’s spinners applied the squeeze, Thirkell-Jones fell to a smart catch from the Cambridge captain at cover. In came Davis, with Sutton already somewhat established, moving along calmly. The two would consolidate, allowing the spinners Payne and Robinson to end their spells with some fairly economical figures. Hofmann and Brown were not quite so lucky. Davis took a particular liking to Hofmann, depositing some wayward straighter balls a good few rows back in the Mound Stand with some ease, eventually leading Oxford to 129-4.
The defence would be comprehensive to say the least. In just the first over, both Cambridge’s opener and their captain would be back in the shed, courtesy of some beautiful bowling from Evie Mayhew, and with some help from her opening partner Sutton, the pair would rip through the top order. At 27-5, it couldn’t have gotten much worse for Cambridge. Their top order was decimated, Mayhew had ended on 4 for 13 from her spell, and the game looked over already. But then it got even worse. Davis came on and terrorised the middle and lower order somehow even more than her predecessors had done. Her four wickets all came clean bowled – accounting for just nine runs at the same time. She had four attempts at the Cambridge number eleven to clinch her fifer, but was thwarted in her attempts to secure the landmark that would typically land you on the Honours Board: “I think it is difficult for anyone who has taken four wickets to not have a five wicket hall in the back of their mind… credit must go to the Cambridge number eleven who had a solid defence. More importantly in my mind at the time was the match winning wicket. But it worked out well in the end with Sophie taking the final wicket. Sophie has been a very consistent bowler for us and a lovely person to have in the team so I was very pleased for her to get the wicket she deserved.”
Off the back of this momentous collapse that would have put the Holy Roman Empire to shame (and some great pressure at the pavilion end from Bea Jones), Sophie Goodman wrapped up the Cambridge innings before any of their bats could accrue even seven runs individually.
Cherwell caught up with Hannah Davis after the game:
C: What was the plan heading into the game?
H: Firstly, we had decided as a team to bat first and try to set a total. We knew we are stronger at defending scores with our bowling attack than chasing so it was a good toss for us to win. One of our main plans was getting some runs on the board to put us in the best position to defend. We were focused on playing ourselves in, knowing that some bad balls would come and we would be ready to capitalise. We were aware that Cambridge had some consistent spinners and were not worried if we did not take too many risks against their better bowlers as we were confident that we could use the short boundary to our advantage to increase our scoring rate towards the end. In terms of bowling, the Cambridge captain, Ciara Boaden, was our key wicket. We felt that if we could get her out quickly we would be in a strong position to win the game. We aimed to keep things simple, bowling tight lines and good lengths to make it difficult to score.
C: More specifically, how did you plan to utilise (for yourself) and negate (for Cambridge) the short leg side boundary at the pavilion end?
H: When batting, I was very aware of the boundary dimensions. When facing from the pavilion end, I planned to hit leg side, stepping across my stumps to access this area if necessary. Conversely from the other end, I planned to give myself some room to hit off side, knowing that a strong cut shot would probably score 4 runs. I also knew that it would not be too difficult to hit a 6 over this boundary so I planned to adapt my game which usually involves playing the ball along the floor (due to not being the strongest batter!) to having the confidence to hit the ball in the air over that side. Defending the short boundary in the field was certainly going to be more challenging. We carefully planned which bowlers would bowl from the pavilion end, with most of these selected bowlers swinging the ball away from the bat or bowling consistently well outside off stump. We planned to place our best fielders defending this boundary and force the Cambridge batters to take a risk in order to hit a 4/6 on the leg side.
C: Having joined Middlesex, does the feeling of coming through the long room ever change?
H: No – I don’t think the feeling of walking out through the Long Room will ever change! Lord’s is such a special place to play cricket and even though I might be fortunate enough to get a few more opportunities to play there for Middlesex, I don’t anticipate the feelings of excitement and anticipation fading.
C: As captain last year, did you get any second hand nerves for Elodie?
H: Yes definitely – I remember being very nervous last year. There is a great deal of behind the scenes organisation and training as captain so I think the build-up to Lords seems bigger. However, it is also an honour to captain at such a great ground and so there is plenty of excitement too. Luckily I think Elodie held it together better than I did last year – it was nice to have such a calm presence leading us on the pitch!
C: After a slow but steady start did you feel some pressure to come in and hit big?
H: I think that Hannah and Annys, the opening batters, got us off to a great start. We were determined not to let Cambridge take early wickets, so the partnership between those two was perfect for us. There was some pressure coming in to increase the run rate, but I knew that on such a good wicket and with a short boundary on one side, there was plenty of opportunity to score runs if I could stay at the crease. During my partnership with Hannah Sutton, we spoke about getting to 120 and running hard between the wickets to pick up extra runs whenever we could, which I think we started to do very well. We knew that we could run 2 or 3 when the ball was hit towards the bigger boundary and could take singles to most fielders on the ring. This certainly took some pressure off to ‘hit big’ as we were slowly increasing the run rate without taking too many risks. Towards the back end of the innings I was trying hard to hit boundaries towards the short boundary but we knew that anything above 120 would be challenging to chase as long as we bowled and fielded well.
The men’s side didn’t quite warrant as much attention from an Oxford perspective, although they put up considerably more of a fight against Cambridge than Cambridge women did against ours. So call it an overall Oxford victory?
It was the Cambridge spinners that really did the damage in the Oxford innings – Spanish international Seb Hughes-Pinan picked up two crucial wickets to swing the game in Cambridge’s favour but the pick of the bowlers was Tom ‘Skezza’ Skerrett who picked up three wickets, including that of captain Justin Clarke, and a run-out in to keep Oxford at an indefensible 106 off of their 20. For a moment, the indefensible almost looked defensible as Norman lobbed the first ball of the Cambridge innings to Vivek Narayan on the short boundary, but it was little more than a fleeting hope. Kottler, pushed up the order for the T20, hit a brisk 52 off 35, including three sixes, one of which nearly taking my poor, unsuspecting dad’s head clean off. His 52 accounted for Cambridge’s 68 runs at the time, but the damage was already done. Ferreira and the suitably named [piece of] Cake would walk Cambridge over the line in just 15.1 overs, with eight wickets still in hand.
