Leicestershire v Leeds/Bradford MCCU, Grace Road, 24th April 2013
(Leicestershire lost by 102 runs)
‘The Students’. A chance for the batsmen to (as the sign on the pavilion says) ‘indulge in stressless’, bulk up their averages against some callow bowling and for those out of touch to play themselves back into form. That’s what Leeds/MCCU must have been thinking when they saw they were due to play Leicestershire. Unfair.
It is unusual for a University side to beat a first-class County (in fact I contrived to be there the last time it happened too, on the occasion at Fenner’s when Cambridge beat a Surrey 2nd XI featuring Kevin Pietersen). I see that the Leicester Mercury described Leicestershire’s batting on the last day as ‘abject’ and ’embarrassing’, which it may well have been, but a more positive way of looking at it would be to see it as a tribute to the success of the MCCU scheme.
Apparently one-fifth of current County cricketers are now graduates of one of the six MCCU sides. One virtue of it is that it offers the player who has been involved with one of the counties at a junior level a middle way between putting all his eggs in one basket by becoming a full-time professional at 18 or 19 and dropping out of the game altogether in favour of education and a career (which has been a significant problem since the abolition of amateurism).
Apart from the entirely unacademic, those who choose to sign full-time with a County tend to be those who have some hope of becoming international cricketers. There is, if you will, a separate career pathway for these, that involves playing for England Under-19s, putting in some performances in County cricket while moving into the Development Squad. By the time the MCCU man is graduating at 22 or 23 the future Test player is likely to have already played for the Lions and may have made it into a full international side.
There are a few internationals who have taken the University route, but these tend to be the late developers (Strauss, Compton) or those who follow their own star entirely (Panesar) and they have had to make their case for selection by their performances in County cricket. An interesting case is Toby Roland-Jones, who spent three years with Leeds-Bradford. At 25 he is now being spoken of as a promising future England prospect, when he is only a year younger than Stuart Broad.
At Leicester, for instance, Broad, Taylor and now Thakor have turned down University places, whereas Greg Smith (Durham), Rob Taylor and Jigar Naik (Loughborough) have hedged their bets with Summer contracts. Josh Cobb, who has been in the side since he was 17, is now, at 22, the one-day Captain and is standing in for Sarwan when he is away (as he is likely to be for much of the Summer).
What this means is that anyone who imagines ‘the students’ to be a collection of scholarly types who play a bit in their spare time, ‘good club players’ at best, just waiting to be marmalised by a half-decent County, needs to have another look at the make-up of this side.
Of those on show here, all but one have at least played 2nd XI county cricket and several are on Summer contracts at some of the leading Counties. The mellifluously named Captain, Luis Reece, who scored a century and took 4-28, is on the staff at Lancashire. Of the three opening bowlers, James Lee (24) first appeared for the Yorkshire 1st XI as long ago as 2006, but was released after some disappointing seasons. He says that he originally returned to study as an alternative to playing cricket, but, after his performances this year (including taking 7-45 against Yorkshire) he must be reconsidering.
Ivan Thomas is one of the group of talented younger players at Kent that I was discussing the other day, and, on this showing, would be pushing Shreck and Coles for a place in the side. The third seamer, Zafir Patel, who took 7-27 on his debut against Cambridge, is described as a ‘pharmacy student’, but has also played for Baroda and had an IPL contract with the Delhi Daredivils in 2012. It’s all a very long way from the Wingfield-Digbys and R. le Q. Savages of yore (decent players though they both were) and there are one or two Counties who wouldn’t mind being able to field three bowlers of their quality.
So, although getting soundly beaten by a University is hardly a morale booster at this stage of the season, neither is it the ignominious blot on our escutcheon it would once have been. There is still hope.
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On a more positive note, I am pleased to say that, after lobbying by the dog-loving Hoggard and others, dogs have been allowed to return to Grace Road after a gap of some years. I look forward to seeing a few dog-on-the-pitch incidents during the coming season, and may even consider buying one myself. I’m also pleased to see that the Meet is attending to their physical needs as well as Mr. Stew is doing with his excellent Portuguese Chicken.
Woof woof!
The Crimson Rambler 