Cricket Drops Season Opener vs. Merion

Ty Joplin

Posted: Sep 13, 2015

Match Scoreline:
Merion Cricket Club: 138/5
Haverford: 101 all out
Merion Cricket Club wins by 37 runs

HAVERFORD, Pa. - The Haverford College cricket team dropped its season opener to the Merion Cricket Club, 138/5-101 all out at Cope Field on Sunday afternoon.

Merion won the ton and elected to bat first. Haverford started the game positively with a highly disciplined bowling effort, restricting Merion to 138 runs in the 20 overs allotted. The new ball was taken by senior Ty Joplin and sophomore Raghav Bali. The duo produced a miserly first spell which gave away very few extras and kept Merion to a relatively slow scoring rate of under six runs per over.

Wickets eluded the Haverford bowlers until the introduction of sophomore Darshan Suryavanshi Magar, whose unerring accuracy consistently produced mishits from Merion's batsmen. Magar was the leading wicket taker for the Fords, taking three wickets at a cost of 32 runs; one of those wickets was a catch taken in spectacular fashion by freshman Nathaniel Rolfe, pouching a hard-struck ball at the deep slip position. Of the five wickets taken by the Haverford bowlers, Joplin took the other two in a devastating second spell, which saw junior Chris Hadad take a stunning catch at mid-on of Joplin's bowling. Joplin finished with bowling figures of two wickets for 25 runs.

The lower order of Haverford produced highly memorable batting at the tail end of the inning. Magar, fresh off a fantastic spell of bowling, anchored the Ford's chase, facing off 23 balls for 12 runs. Freshman Charlie Lynn displayed some of the cleanest striking of the Haverford batting inning in his debut game, employing spectacular placement of the ball and a powerful cover drive; Lynn top-scored for the Fords with final figures of 12 runs from nine balls. In the end, Haverford found itself giving too little too late, being caught 37 runs short at the fall of the final wicket. Next week, the Haverford cricket team faces off against the British Officers' Cricket Club on Saturday and Mulgaldi Cricket Club on Sunday.