The moment Cambridge wonCameron White

Cambridge have won (23/05) the 2021 Men’s Varsity one-day cricket match at Lord’s, 218-6 (28.3), beating Oxford by four wickets on 229-4 (29).

Oxford won the toss and elected to bat first. With an 11:00 (BST) start, Hargrave and Duxbury enjoyed an impressive partnership in the opening seven overs, steadily building Oxford’s score up to 44-0 after the 42nd ball. Duxbury, on 20 runs, was then caught out with Oxford on 46-1, and Corner replaced him.

Corner and Hargrave then put together a partnership of 15 runs, with the former hitting a boundary before being dismissed at 61-2, after only picking up 6 runs, through an LBW (b. Amin). Mohamed came on to replace Corner, putting together a partnership of 22 runs with Hargrave and hitting the game’s only six in the fifteenth over, but he was then bowled out by Amin at 83-3, who picked up his second wicket of the game for Cambridge.

After a further four runs, rainfall then meant that play was suspended after having played just 15.2 overs at 87-3. The game had been briefly disrupted early on, and after a second disruption, play was rescheduled for 13:35, with the number of overs per side reduced to 40. It then began to rain again, and play was further delayed until 14:00 following an umpire inspection and the amount of overs per side reduced to 37. However, it rained yet again at 14:00 and the players took a break for lunch, before the umpires re-started the match at 15:30, with just 29 overs per side.

After the resumption of play, an astonishing 91-run partnership between Hargrave and Gnodde catapulted Oxford to 174-4, at which point Gnodde (c. Taylor b.Moen) was dismissed when Taylor caught his high ball. Alsop then came on and secured a further twelve runs, with Hargrave, Oxford’s standout batsman of the afternoon, sealing a century from 76 balls in the 27th over, scoring eleven boundaries and three sixes in the match. Oxford finished their innings on 229-4 after the 29th over, leaving Cambridge a revised target of 215 (DLS) to win.

Cambridge looked set to fall short of this reduced target after Searle bowled out Houillon in just the second ball of the opening over, making it 1-1 after the first over. Cambridge suffered a further five dismissals through Moen (2-76), Hyde (3-93), Taylor (4-101), Dhariwal (5-124) and Turner (6-176).


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However, they turned it around through Amin, who was monumental in staging Cambridge’s comeback, with two sixes and a boundary in the 22nd over reviving their chances. He then went on to hit two sixes in the 27th over to leave Cambridge needing just 13 runs off 12 balls. This was finally achieved with three balls to spare in the final over, with two wides from Oxford offering Cambridge a helping hand. Amin also came close to Hargrave’s 105 runs, with 93 of his own off 50 balls.

Today’s victory sees Cambridge avenge their 2019 defeat to Oxford at Lord’s, where they lost by a margin of 56 runs, with last year’s fixture cancelled amidst pandemic restrictions at the time.

A comprehensive scorecard of today's match can be accessed here.

Sides

Oxford:

1 - G.T. Hargrave (Shrewsbury and Hertford)

2 - J.A. Duxbury (Bedford and Queen’s)

3 - T.P. Corner (Skinners’ and Merton)

4 - O.Z. Mohamed (Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet and Keble)

5 - T.R.W. Gnodde (Eton and Christ Church)

6 - O.J. Alsop (The John Bentley School and St. Stephen’s)

C.J. Searle (Hampton and Worcester)

8 - F.J.H. Foster (Eltham College and St. Cross)

9 - O.J. Marshall (The John Lyon School and Exeter)

10 - W.G. Barker (Radley and Merton)

11 - B.A.J. Fisher (Bishops Wordsworth’s School and Magdalen)

Cambridge:

1 - N.P. Taylor (The Perse School and Clare)

2 - H.F. Houillon (Sevenoaks and Fitzwilliam)

3 - A.J. Moen (Tonbridge and Magdalene)

4 - E.R.B. Hyde (Tonbridge and Jesus)

5 - J.S. Dhariwal (King Edward VI, Southampton and Magdalene)

6 - A.R. Amin (Merchant Taylors’ and Emmanuel)

7 - S.A. Turner (St. Paul’s and Downing)

8 - M. Senanayake (Royal Grammar School, Newcastle and St. John’s)

9 - R.J.F. Newby (South African College, H.S. and Sidney Sussex)

10 - J.C. Vitali (Sherborne and Christ’s)

11 - J.O. Cross-Zamirski (The Perse School and Downing)

Umpires: R. White & T. Lungley