The Wykehamist
Eton Match Report
I
imagine that many readers are aware of Winchester’ s cricketing rivalry with Eton, though I am sure that some are not. To provide some context Winchester began playing Eton at cricket in 1826 and other than a period of 22 years between 1832-1854 the match was played alternately home and away. In that period, the match was contested at Lord’ s cricket ground and was part of a tri-series including Eton and Harrow. Since then it has been known as Winchester match and occurred on what is now known as Wykeham Day before it became a stand alone fixture a few years ago. However, to honour the 199 years of rivalry this year the match was contested at a neutral ground: Arundel Castle, a first class ground known for its stunning setting and picturesque views.
Lords XI arrived in plenty of time at Arundel to take in the surroundings and get a thorough warm-up in before Eton, who had been held up in M25 traffic, even arrived. As tends to be the case Seb Morgan( D, 2020-) won the toss and unsurprisingly elected to bat first on what appeared to be a very good pitch. Our openers Will Alexander( B, 2020-) and Jack Bristowe( B, 2020-) started excellently, putting on 83 for the first wicket before Seb came in at three. He and Will pushed the score on fluently, both bringing up their respective half centuries in quick succession of each other before Will fell to a good piece of bowling. This did not halt our progress however as Rhys Kanbi( D, 2020-) combined with the captain putting on a third consecutive 80 run partnership of the innings. Soon enough Seb reached three figures, his ton came off just 93 balls and included 8x4s and 3x6s and rightly received an ovation from parents and players but also from the numerous neutral spectators who had come to watch the game. For the majority of our innings we looked as if we would get above 300 and potentially even reach 320 but a flurry of wickets and some good Eton bowling at the death meant Winchester finished on 287 from our 50 overs.
At lunch we sat with the opposition players and enjoyed a delicious meal provided by the Arundel Castle cricket club. During the break we learnt about the invaluable work the Arundel Castle cricket foundation does in inspiring the next generation of cricketers, particularly those for those without access to good equipment, coaching and facilities. After that it was back to cricket.
Our bowling innings began in perfect fashion with Seb removing one of the Eton openers in the third over with a very good ball which clipped the off stump. Although after that the Eton 1 and 3 put on 112 for the second wicket and looked very untroubled at the crease. Nevertheless as is often the case a canny bowling change did the trick with Jacob Gilkison( D, 2021-) trapping the other Eton opener lbw. Yet again we let the Eton batsmen settle and seemed to provide them with a boundary ball every over to release any scoreboard pressure which we were trying to build. Eventually Amar Fernando( I, 2022-) dismissed Eton’ s captain and seemingly best batter which re-opened the door for us. This turned out to be the key breakthrough lifting our spirits. Despite not being aided by a pitch which was getting flatter and flatter we managed to continue to pick up regular wickets with spin doing the trick: Jacob took another with George Bowder( B, 2020-) taking 2 and Sam Humphreys( D, 20200) and Tom Howard( E, 2022-) with 1. Consequently Eton failed to acquire any continuity and despite a few clumsy errors in the field towards the end we managed to close out a brilliant win by 10 runs. To be able to do so at such a special ground was even more enjoyable and thanks must go to Eton, not only for an excellent game dubbed by an old Etonian and ex-professional as‘ the best he had ever seen between the two sides’, but also for organising the event as it was an Eton parent who had so kindly arranged for us to play at Arundel. This meant we had dispatched both Eton and Harrow, our two oldest rivals, in the space of just 5 days, a perfect way to start the season.
Stanley Askew( K, 2021-)
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