It could be worse, we could be these guys...

No matter how things go for us, it could be worse, we could be these guys.

All XI players were bowled out for 3 in a senior match. Worse still, 2 of the runs were leg byes, and the only one from the willow was scored by the number XI batsman.

Fair play to them though, taking it on the chin. Cricket can just be like this sometimes.

I'm glad to see that they are enjoying their new found fame - with reports as far afield as Australia celebrating the achievement.

Jagex CC - Start of Season - 2014

Another year, another season for Jagex CC. The sunshine has started to peak through the clouds, the IPL is in full swing, and we've just completed 10 full weeks of nets, so we're raring to go for our fourth season of Jagex CC 20/20 evening cricket.

Jagex is a computer games company based in Cambridge, UK. We are a friendly bunch around the office and accordingly we have a number of social sports teams. The cricket club is one such enterprise. We play 20/20 evening cricket against a number of local businesses and do our best to chronicle the highs and lows of the season with photos and this blog.

We're very much a social cricketing team - with an emphasis on sportsmanship, sledging and beer drinking - as opposed to say, you know, being actually good at sport.

Sadly we've lost some former stalwarts in between the end of the 2013 season and the start of 2014.

Love Verma is no longer on these fair shores - having gone back home to India. We will miss his lightning quick, skiddy, bowling and innovative batting technique.

Simon "Milky Au" Lait has departed Jagex for some other enterprise in a nearby village or hamlet. His fast bowling will be missed by all - although our wicket-keeper and the wide column in the scorebook may both see less action than before.

Kris Jones, the man with the most vociferous "NO!" at the crease has moved all of 100 yards away to work for another business in the sunny environs of the science park. 

Everyone else is present and correct, and we've acquired Mr Matt Parish, as a new recruit - very much in the Piers Morgan mould. Also, Lee Maplesden has crossed codes, moving over to join the cricket team for his first season, whilst also remaining a fairly decent footballer.

12 fixtures are ahead of us, which will no doubt be punctuated by a start of season curry, a mid season curry, and the all important end of season curry. So, without further ado, watch this space for updates.

Cricket Season Ends, Football Season Begins

With that, the cricket season is at an end.

If you'd like to follow Jagex FC playing the altogether more ungentlemanly sport of kickball/football/soccer - check out our latest blog here.

That's all folks!

End of Season Awards and Curry

The end of season curry this year was held on a Thursday. Goodness me that was a bad idea - the entire office was retching and heaving on the Friday after one too many Jaegar bombs.

We went to the pickerel for a couple of beers and then settled down in the pleasing environs of the Maharajah on Castle Hill.

Here the awards were handed out - with suitable pomp and circumstance -

Player of the Season Award - Mark Fardell
Most Improved Player Award -  Jeroen Van Daal
Ian Botham All Rounder Award - Liam Brett

I was also rather touched to be awarded a tonne of goodies from the team, including a bat, pads, a framed picture of me, some whisky and a superman dressing gown.

The night descended into chaos fairly early from this point forwards. We wandered to Las Iguanas and ended up seeing the group joined by 2 young women and a whole lot of cocktails.

I briefly ended up on someone's shoulders, before we moved on to the Mitre and then La Razr. Here the shots appeared and conversation stunted to a halt. My McClarty disliked the presence of the women, and politely asked them to leave. Apparently one of them is a babysitter for Mr Wise's son, and accordingly this was poor form.

From here we eventually made our way to the Fountain, and beyond this, it's all a blur for me. Thankfully I had the good sense to book the next day off work, but others weren't so lucky.

There was a more serious casualty on the evening. Darren the duck has been a member of the team through thick and thin, but is now sadly missing in action, presumed drowned in the Cam. If you have seen this duck anywhere in Cambridge, please call us...

Brilliant/Hilarious Moments of 2013...

Some of our most brilliant or hilarious moments of the season...

Last game of the season, Fardell middled a pull and smacked square leg umpire McClarty on the arm - Mark didn't really apologise...

Verma’s incredible bowling debut  17-3, and a direct hit run out

Steve Morgan’s direct hit run out of Fardell. He got so excited, he tried it again and again and again for the rest of the game

Van Daal's magical over of bowling - he's definitely a specialist batsman

Tween's incredible single over bowled of the season. Words cannot do it justice

Jamy's batting and wicket keeping - very capable, but very unorthodox and great fun to watch

Jamy's sledging should get a special mention - hum baby, hum baby... get wicketed... you name it...

McClarty's incredible batting debut at the top of the order, hitting 2 6's in our first game

McClarty doing a top job, particularly down the legside, as stand-in wicket keeper for our last game

AVEVA tweaking their field every couple of balls in the late August light - resulting in them nearly playing in the dark when batting

AVEVA using 3 slips for most of their innings... #WTF?

Brett's ace batting, the 6 master. His straight off drive is worth the price of admission alone, and his little cameos and ability to skip down the track are great to watch

Willem almost taking a catch and then falling with a thuddering jolt to the earth

Broadbridge's multitude of great bowling spells, the pick being 26-3. He gives the ball more air than Tony Hawk, some generous turn, and suckers the batsmen in

Jeroen's boomstastic 46*, almost getting a 50 for the first time this year (which would have been our first 50 since 2011). He scored all round the ground, and also generally looked pleased as punch before during and after every shot. A man who always plays with a smile

Lait's scoring zone - deep backward square - which he used to get 16 runs from 4 balls against Bidwells with his £20 timber

Piers getting hit in the face whilst batting, being caught and dismissed off his face and Sophie's little "Oh no" reaction...

Justin Edwards finding his range with bat and ball all season - including some great bowling, ace batting and good fielding.

Lait's bowling was brilliant all season. When it works, as it did for the latter half of the season - it's difficult to face and difficult to score from. When it doesn't work, well, it's really entertaining. Left arm round the wicket fast bowler anyone?

Brett's bowling, once he upped the pace, was very devastating. I was facing him on the end of some decent chin music, and it's really quite terrifying

The S-Tech game, with our top ever score of 181 with a great all round effort

The spectators, include Sophie, Matthias, Laura, Laura's mates, Zoe, Andy Parker and his family - we've got a fan club

Piers has had a brilliant season bowling - he's our go to man for death bowling

Piers also deserves a special mention for a catch at short extra cover, the batsman absolutely hammered it low at Piers, amazing catch, batsman shook his head, and he almost cried at the pain. I recall Piers making a lot of catches

Jeroen and Willem's misfields. Other people did misfield - and I managed to forfeit a round of drinks in one game by misfielding - but no-one does it like these two saffers

Jeroen screaming "Yeah" before hitting a ball for 6. The bowler's face was a picture

Cooper's wicket tastic bowling - with lots of mega big turn. The dry pitches saw him get some incredible variation and change

Enzo's chicken skewers!

Willem chasing me round the field for accusing him of being unfit

McClarty's sledge about my mum

Lamble's sledge about me being a beached whale

The sixes tournament, on possibly the sunniest day ever

When Fardell struggled to get down to a ball that raced past him - McClarty piping in with "would you like some WD40?"...

McClarty's reactions to LBW decisions - incredulity doesn't do it justice

Jones' little 25 at the end of the season

Us using two bats, one "Boom Boom" that was £35 from Kashmir, and Simon using a £20 Sports Direct number. I'm not sure which was worse

Piers falling over lots during one batting session - clearly needs some new shoes

Steve Morgan and Willem giving us a defendable total against Sharks. It really was a top notch lower order partnership to get us over the line to something vaguely defendable

Simon Lait's nicknames - Milky au Lait, Full Fat, Milkybar Kid

Us getting a logo (Thanks Piers)!

Lait's cough/splutter/choke signal before delivering his patented slower ball

The shock on Willem's face when he caught one from Juzzy's bowling

2013 Season Stats

This is what cricket is all about.... stat attack...

We operate a mythical index system at Jagex that takes account of runs scored, innings, ducks, batting average, bowling average, wickets and overs - and pushes those stats through a complicated mathematical algorithm that affords them a weighting based on a formula derived from an ancient Mayan Calendar that didn't successfully predict the end of the world.

It was devised by Neil Tween, our former finance dude - and has been updated by his successor Richard Colledge. In honour of it's originator, it is known as the...

Tween Index

Tween Index 2013

1 - M Fardell – 381 points

2 – L Brett – 265 points

3 – J Van Daal – 264 points

4 – R Colledge – 245 points

5 – P Morgan – 238 points

6 – J Edwards – 195 points

7 – L Verma – 175 points

8 – N Cooper – 155 points

9 – S Lait – 149 points

10 – J Nigri – 111 points

11 – R Lamble & W Amoraal – 105 points

13 – P Broadbridge – 98 points

14 – N McClarty – 85 points

15 – S Morgan – 84 points

16 – K Jones – 78 points

17 – M Gibbins – 36 points

18 – D Wise – 0 points

19 – N Tween – (17) points

Most Runs – M Fardell
Best Batting Average – J Van Daal
Leading Wicket taker – N Cooper
Most Economical Bowler – L Verma

It's good to see Mr Tween propping up his own invention. The more traditional statistics are below.

Batting

Bowling

 

2013 Season - Win/Loss Summary

Jagex Jaguars just completed our most successful season to date, with an exact 50% win loss ratio. We played 10 evening games – with two cancelled. We won 5 and lost 5.

The closest games were NCI and Eversheds, both of which we narrowly lost. My personal favourite game was probably the Eversheds game, partially because of the tight nature of the contest and the great individual contributions from McClarty and Verma and the excellent spirit of the contest. Games against S-Tech are always good fun, and the contribution from so many different players in the Jagex ranks makes this my close second favourite of the season.

Won (last 5 games)

Jagex 137-3 (Brett 28*, Jones 25*, Fardell 24, Sprague 15-1) beat Mills & Reeve 116-8 (Lanceman 25*, Sprague 15*, Cooper 11-2, S Morgan 20-2) by 21 runs.

Jagex 136-8 (Fardell 33*, Nash 26*, Lamble 21, John T 21-3, James 25-3) beat AVEVA 114-9 (Alex 35*, Arvesh 18*, Brett 17-3, Cooper 14-2) by 22 runs

Jagex 146-6 (Van Daal 46*, Colledge 24, Fardell 32-2, Thimh 15-1) beat Ensors 108-5 (Douglas 26*, Chima 25*, Lait 18-2) by 38 runs

Jagex 115 - 2 (Colledge 28*, Van Daal 25*, Nigri 25*) beat PEM 111-5 (J Lee 30*, P Davda 27*, P Morgan 8-2) by 8 wickets

Jagex 181-3 (Colledge 33*, Edwards 30*, Fardell 30*, Nigri 25) beat S-Tech 147-7 (Jack 31*, Sam 30*, Broadbridge 26-3) by 34 runs

Lost (first 5 games)

Savills 135-1 (Simkins 27*, Bailey 25*, Lait 22-1) beat Jagex 134-6 (Fardell 40*, Van Daal 28*, Verma 26*, Bailey 27-2) by 9 wickets

Bidwells 137-2 (Moore 27*, A. Scott 25*, P Morgan 13-1) beat Jagex 136-8 (Van Daal 19, P Morgan 17*, Edwards 17, W. Scott 17-2) by 8 wickets

Sharks 119-4 (MVS 25*, Michael 25*, Jim 25*, Broadbridge 14-2) beat Jagex 116-9 (P Morgan 19, S Morgan 17, Jason 14-3) by 6 wickets

NCI (Kumar 23, Johnston 22, Edwards 18-2) 97 beat Jagex (Colledge 27*, P Morgan 21, Laskisingh 9-1) 84 by 13 runs

Eversheds 138 (Humphrey 44, McGlashan 26*, Verma 18-3) beat Jagex 125 (McClarty 28, Van Daal 22, New 19-3) by 13 runs