Written by Elliot McKinnon-Gray

THERE HAD BEEN murmurings among the cricket lovers of the Meteorology department about resurrecting the Staff v Student cricket match each year when the darling buds of Spring give way to the lush green leaves of Summer and the drying out of the ground underfoot. It was time to get it going. It started with casual conversations over coffee about the logistics of resurrecting this beloved tradition, and then the feelers were sent out. Over 30 people signed up to be notified of developments, so I knew we would have enough players, and it was time to find a venue.

How foolish it was of me to assume that the University would have an on-campus cricket pitch – “a non-starter on campus” I was told by Sport@Reading: turns out they had turfed out their cricketers and exiled them to a far away land the other side of the M4. That would not do. Then came the excellent suggestion from one of the all-time cricketing greats of the department, Reg. Prof. Keith Shine who suggested we could ask over at Sol Joel Park about use of their facilities. A perfectly walkable distance away. But again I was met with an apologetic rebuttal – the facilities were fully booked out by regular-season teams. Looks like we were going to have to MacGyver this together ourselves. The plan was simple: plastic cones for a boundary and stumps on springs on a plain patch of grass near the SportsPark. But then came the revelation that PhD student Eme Dean-Lewis might be able to connect with the lovely folk over at Leighton Park School, just over the road at the Pepper Lane exit. It was all a little last minute, but it was done. The first Staff vs. Student match was to be held on the grounds of Leighton Park school on their beautifully kept ground in front of their adorable Victorian pavilion.

Gameday arrived. Tuesday 17^th June 2025. Gloriously hot and dry: a perfect day for a game of cricket. We were to play a 22-over game so that everyone faced 12 balls but we had to be out of the ground by 20:45, so no hanging about! To speed things along, there were no re-bowls for wides or no balls, but a 2-run penalty. A 2 run penalty to the batting team for each wicket lost as well. The Students’ captain E. McKinnon-Gray and Staff captain K. M. R. Hunt went out to inspect the wicket and both had the same first impression. This looks like a subcontinental wicket – hard and dry with a few cracks. Not expecting a lot of bounce or seam movement but the spinners might have a field day…

At the toss, both captains were happy with Students’ XI batting first. The first over was N. Reddy to E. McKinnon-Gray and provided some of the highest quality cricket of the evening. Reddy was bowling fast and straight, but McKinnon-Gray was making use of that pace and managed to score 10 off the first over with a bye for the team taking the opening over score to 11-0. It was looking like a good day to bat. Following that was Shipley to Mammatt with a modest 3 including a wicket. Reddy to McKinnon-Gray was the story of the 3^rd over, and two stories of the game as a whole. To make up for his expensive first over, Reddy elected to come over the wicket this time, and first ball pitched up viciously into McKinnon-Gray’s thumb resulting in a painful swelling. Great deal of help those expensive Gray-Nicolls gloves were! The following ball, wicket keeper S. Woolnough suffered the same fate to a searing yorker-length ball just outside off stump that went for a bye. Two fractured thumbs in two balls, Reddy took the pace off a bit and decided to bowl some medium-fast spin. The result was just 2 runs off the 3^rd over. McKinnon-Gray and Woolnough continued to play through the pain.

Mammatt followed up with a well earned 3 runs off the bowling of W. Tsai. Up next was the batting pair of S. K. Panda and C. Miller. Like the other pairs, this represents one more and one less experienced player. All the inexperienced players made a great case for themselves and had a good time according to conversations I have had with them today. And that is the most important thing – that people enjoyed playing a team sport with their colleagues (and bosses!).

In the four overs that followed there were a flurry of runs and wickets. Panda crashed a delicious four on the offside which almost got lost in the bushes off Reddy’s fast spin. Miller, after scoring a run off the spin of C. O’Reilly, was caught and bowled by O’Reilly twice in consecutive balls. The eventual player of the match was giving us his first hint that he came here to win this match for team Staff. 5 runs off the Hunt to Panda over, followed by A. Charlton-Perez to Miller which resulted in another wicket, this time a catch by Woolnough off the tall spinner’s bowling.

In at 5 and 6 were the experienced D. Wood and the flying Dutchwoman with 0 games under her belt A. Te Winkel. Wood played a classy innings scoring 4 runs with a variety of classic strokes off the bowling of R. Kandala. Te Winkel scored a steady 3 off Williams’s and Shipley’s bowling. Up next were R. S. Nemani and G. Ching-Johnson. Nemani scored 3 and lost two wickets to the bowling of B. Senapati, while Ching-Johnson scored 1 and weathered the storm against a barrage of spin from Thompson and G. Hu. The best was yet to come for the student batters however – out walked L. Blunn and N. Inatimi with the Students foundering at 62-6 off 16. 4 overs later, they stood at 97-7 after Blunn crashed 21 off his two overs against the bowling of P. M. Inness and N. Reddy. Inatimi endured an eventful two overs, scoring 7 runs including a boundary – the only inexperienced player to do so – and was the 3^rd victim of another O’Reilly caught and bowled. Up at 11 to give the Students a boost at the end was J. Charlton-Perez with a beautifully struck 12 from 12 balls (and making his dad run around a fair bit in the field!).

The final student net score of 107 must be caveated here by the fact that the Staff XI was in fact a Staff XIII – two extra players flew under the radar until near the end. With this taken into account, Staff only won by 9 runs, but in their batting innings they certainly made sure that there was no doubt over the winner.

The bowling started well for the Students, with EMG, JCP, Nemani, and Blunn conceding just 16 runs off the opening 4 overs of Hunt and Hu. It was during the staff batting that some creative nominations for player of the match began to be suggested. A very successful chase was about to start, possibly thanks to a seagull roaming around the perimeter. Another suggestion was in the form of umpire K. Shine who, if all the extras were credited to him was the top scorer by 400%! He did however play the full 44 overs – a valiant effort.

In at 3 and 4 were Thompson and Reddy whose mission was to “take off the scoreboard pressure”. And they did exactly that – 36 runs off their stand and Staff were already nearly halfway to Students’ total. No wickets fell in the next pairing of Senapati and Shipley – adding 25 more (mostly extras). The following pairing was what ultimately won the match for the Staff and cemented O’Reilly’s place as player of the match. O’Reilly hit a thunderous 24 off the bowling of Panda and McKinnon-Gray with Tsai contributing 4 more, and extras taking the staff score to within 2 of the Students’. The bowling of Blunn to Tsai also brought up arguably the highest quality piece of bowling and fielding of the match, a beautiful outswinger from Blunn nicked offside straight to the raised hands of Panda at first slip high above his head. A proper test dismissal. JCP’s wicket-keeping debut was off to a flyer with a stumping to end the final over of Tsai’s batting.

Kandala and Inness followed up, and although wickets fell to Panda and Blunn with a great performance from stand-in keeper JCP with a catch to add to his tally, the pair contributed 24 to the Staff score taking the game all but out of reach of the Students. Finally, it was the turn of Williams to bat and perhaps the most village moment of the whole game. While running for his first single off the bowling of Blunn, his box fell out onto the middle of the pitch! We then all politely looked away while he readjusted…! Blunn and J. Charlton-Perez got a wicket each with no extras, but despite their tight bowling, Williams’s 4 runs was enough to make sure of the result.

All in all, a great departmental social event, and hopefully a few more people can count themselves as enjoyers of cricket. See you all at the next one – students, we’ve got revenge to seek!