'Alleyne era' starts with a win

Date released: 30 April 2009

MCC's new Head Coach, Mark Alleyne watched his Young Cricketers (YCs) side start their Second XI Trophy season underway with a win over Nottinghamshire II.

Match report from MCC Coach, Mark Wright:

Brown: Starting his first year for the YCs Notts won the toss and elected to bowl in conditions which looked as though they would favour the seamers. However, the MCC YC opening batsman Ian Cockbain and Gary Brown got off to a solid start and put on 50 for the first wicket until Cockbain was dismissed for a well made 30.

Jackson Thompson fell cheaply, for five, which left the YCs at 70-2.

Captain, Michael Richardson and Brown took the score on to 142-3 when Brown was dimissed off the bowling of namesake Jason Brown for a solid 53.

Decent contributions from the lower middle order: Richardson 51; Eckersley 38; and Querl 20 helped take the score on to 237-6 after 50 overs.

Breakthrough wicket

Notts set about their target of 238 in very positive fashion through some powerful striking from Will Jefferson.

Jonathan Miles opened the bowling The YCs' opening bowling partnership of Jonathan Miles and Andrew Clarke were put under pressure and were at times let down in the field with a couple of chances going down.

Miles made the breakthough on the final ball of the bowling powerplay and took the vital wicket of Jefferson and the game was evenly poised at 97-2 off 20 overs.

The introduction of the two spinners (Luke Beaven and Thompson) helped turn the game the YCs way and both bowled with excellent control and variation on what was stilla decent wicket.

Beaven 10-1-35-2 and Thompson 10-1-34-1 helped restrict Notts to 170-5 off 38 overs.

The introduction of the batting powerplay failed to give Notts the initiative and some excellent bowling from Querl and Saffell helped blow away the final five Notts wickets and they were bowled out for 198.

Querl finished with figures of 6.5-0-26-3 and Saffell 5-0-24-2.

MCC YCs won the game by 39 runs and it was a great reward for an excellent team effort.

The team has benefitted from the introduction of a few new faces this season and they have interacted very well and the victory today is hopefully a springboard for the rest of the season.

MCC YCs take on Notts II again in the Second Eleven Championship. The game will again be played at Radlett CC and will run from Wednesday 29 April to Friday 1 May.