Defiant Warwick edged out by Loughborough

Warwick Men’s Cricket suffered a 40-run defeat at Loughborough in their attempt to record a second successive away victory.

Last week’s win in Northumbria was Warwick’s first win in the BUCS Premier Division, as reported by The Boar.

But they were brought back down to earth after struggling to chase Loughborough’s score of 240 from 50 overs, despite a defiant final-wicket stand of 49 from Dom Gill and Miten Khatri.

After captain Simon Knott lost the toss, Loughborough elected to bat first and a fiery opening spell from Gill restricted the renowned sporting university to a tentative 40-1 after 14 overs.

Some tight bowling from John Faal continued to restrict the home side’s run flow, while skipper Knott unleashed some off-spin himself – managing to get two wickets in the process. However, this did not prevent Loughborough reaching their competitive score.

An opening flourish from Daniel Williams got Warwick’s reply off to a defiant start, but wickets soon started to tumble. Despite some excellent batting from Williams, who reached a half-century before succumbing, it needed a late flourish from Gill and Khatri to give the scoreline some respectability.

Nevertheless, Warwick were delighted with the performance: the club had admitted that beating Loughborough would have resembled “Wimbledon’s taming of Liverpool in the FA Cup, even Buster Douglas’ defeat of Mike Tyson”.

The UWMCC are on home soil next week, where they will face Leeds Metropolitan University.