Fifteen year old James Bakelmun reached his first century for the College 1st XI in a close match against MCC which saw the home team producing an excellent all-round performance.

MCC batted first and made the best of excellent conditions for batting, with Fransman (who has played provincial cricket in South Africa) making an aggressive 105 before lunch. Tight bowling from James Bakelmun (2-53) and Tom Small (1-20) aided by a high standard of fielding meant that MCC declared on 276-6. After the early loss of Tom Small, Will Parker and James Bakelmun re-built the innings, managing to reach 117 for 1 by the start of the last 20 overs – to win, the College needed to score a further 160 runs at a rate of 8 an over.

Bakelmun and Parker now accelerated the scoring rate, taking the attack to a very experienced and highly competitive MCC bowling line-up. Bakelmun reached his century and was finally dismissed for 118, but not before he had added exactly 200 runs for the second wicket with Parker who fell in the next over for a superb 81.Despite the best efforts of Chris Clayton-Smith, captain Jonny Sloman, Michael Swainsbury and Phil Carpenter, the College fell just 10 runs short of their target and had to settle for a hard-fought but very exciting draw.

James Bakelmun, who also plays for Hertfordshire U15s, was presented with a bat in Assembly for his excellent innings.