A group of our cricketing boys and sports staff left School at midday on Friday 23 September to meet up with Andrew Strauss, Owais Shah, John Emburey and David Nash. The boys, Harry Cobb, Vinosh Jegatheesan, Aayush Pindoria, Sarthak Panvelkar, Joseph Granger and Saihaj Singh, took the train to St John’s Wood and arrived at the MCC Academy where they were due to be training with Andrew Strauss later on at 2pm.
As the boys arrived at Lord’s they met Old Haberdasher Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP. While there, he very kindly introduced the boys and staff to Kevin Pietersen and Shane Warne who generously took the time to pose for photographs.
The group then went into the Lord’s Academy where Andrew Strauss, David Nash, Owais Shah and John Emburey opened the session with a fitness drill to test fielding abilities. The drills were innovative and challenging and mostly required high levels of stamina. The boys then took part in multiple batting stations where the experts shared their knowledge and helped the pupils improve upon the finer points of batting.
Overall the session provided an insight on how top level players train to keep up their fitness, concentration and skills throughout the year. The players were happy to answer questions that the boys threw at them.
After the session, the boys returned to the highly entertaining 4-day Championship decider between Middlesex CCC and Yorkshire CCC where it seemed as if Middlesex had declared too late. However as the game drew on there was a swing in fortunes as Middlesex bowled out Yorkshire for 178 and won by 61 runs in a thrilling game where the last three wickets fell on consecutive balls. The boys returned having seen a thoroughly interesting game and having met some of the game’s finest players.