Blog - Charlie Morgan - Carlsberg don’t do TFCs…

7 July 2010

From my perspective, there wasn’t a great deal wrong with June 25th 2010. Dawning cloudless and sunny, the only disappointment comes in retrospect. Sitting at home writing this, with my graduation having come and gone in an alcoholic haze, it is beginning to dawn on me that I will never again represent Durham University. In fact, as pathetic as it sounds, a separate tab on my laptop is cycling through the Facebook album “MCCU Challenge Final,” confirming that I can’t quite let go yet. And why should I? It was a serious send-off at Lord’s that day.

 

We should have expected something extraordinary when our captain Tom Westley actually won the toss, a real rarity over the year. Although Luc Durandt, who has been immense throughout the season, nicked off early to Loughborough’s Peter Groves, the rest of the match was as near-perfect as we could ever have hoped.

 

Witnessing the partnership of 193 between Seren Waters and Greg Smith, who has been my team-mate in various guises since the age of eight, was an education in batting, and the moment that the former reached his century will rank very highly in my career. Known affectionately as “The Oracle,” the beaming grin that came over Seren as he steered a characteristically calm single to backward point and waved his bat towards the pavilion was a real privilege to behold after playing alongside him for this special year.

 

With a very sturdy platform, Messrs Westley, Blackaby, Atkinson and Harper caused havoc in the later overs of our innings with some clean striking. Atko was particularly destructive, smoking a massive sweep over to the ropes of the longer boundary towards the Grand Stand. I’d like to think that my efforts in the final over made Loughborough’s task just that bit more imposing, but a scurried three not out was rather lost amidst our huge total of 328 for 6.

 

An inexplicable decision during the interval to order the baked cod, on the basis that I may have to buzz around the inner ring later, represented my only regret of the day. Angered whilst watching Badger our scorer chew down on a glorious plate of chicken curry opposite me, I decided to make sure I’d feel bloated for the second half anyway and chose the apple pie with custard. After piling into buckets of Powerade, just to flog Lord’s for all it was worth, we were ready to take to the hallowed turf for the second half and let the dream continue.

 

One thing our coach Graeme Fowler had insisted upon as we discussed our approach during the warm up was that we should take every chance we had to take in the surroundings, in his words “to have a good look round.” Helped by the heady scoreboard-pressure that our batsmen had earned, I was able to spend the Loughborough innings doing exactly that, momentarily re-focussing to watch our bowlers enjoying themselves.

 

John Glover glided in gracefully from the Nursery End to open the floodgates and there was no looking back. Confirming his position as DUCC’s leading wicket-taker ever, Daniel Gale bowled beautifully to tear apart Loughborough’s middle order. His excellent figures of 5-22 from ten overs took his career-haul to an astonishing 113 wickets and ended the match as a contest. There was still time for George Harper to claim three good scalps and for Groves to smash a very entertaining fifty before The Oracle fittingly wound up the game with a wise top-spinner.

 

From that point, the euphoria didn’t leave any of us. Even at 3.30 the next morning when about eight of us were huddled around a Chicken Premiere meal at the McDonald’s in Leicester Square, we were still going over the finer points of our unbelievable season. Although most of the conversation was slurred, with our path to the eatery having paused at the Long Room, Lord’s Tavern Bar and Tiger Tiger, everyone was on the same wavelength.

 

What Atko, Galey, Glovesy, Turns and I were on about was probably just how brilliant this year has been, punctuated by the occasional “strutski” with a “regs” thrown in for good measure. It wouldn’t have quite the same effect if we weren’t to use the universal language of Durham cricket that we have learned over the last three years. A term that started by conceding half a thousand in a day against Hashim Amla and friends had ended on a wonderful day at the Home of Cricket, as DUCC’s class of 2010 rode off into the sunset in style. I might just have one last look at those photos now.

Charlie Morgan
Durham MCCU