Rory Burns puts his name on the Board

Charles Fellows-Smith, our man in the Lord’s score-box, reports from the New Zealand Test Match

As the Cricketer Cup resumed this weekend following its brief Coronavirus hiatus, another CC player joined the select group of names on the famous Honours Boards at Lord’s.

The England side in the first Test against New Zealand included three batsmen who had played in the CC – Rory Burns (Old Whitgiftians), Zac Crawley (Old Tonbridgians) and Ollie Pope (Old Cranleighans). 

In making 132 in the first innings, Burns put his name on the Honours Board alongside former England captains Peter May (Charterhouse Friars), Colin Cowdrey (Old Tonbridgians), and Andrew Staruss (Radley Rangers) who made five Test centuries at HQ.

Bowling performances are also honoured – the Cricketer Cup is represented by Phil Tufnell (Old Cholmeleians) and Ed Giddins (Old Eastbournians) with five wicket Test hauls. Only one CC player though has recorded a 10-wicket match at Lord’s: Old Alleynian Trevor Bailey took 11 West Indian wickets in the 1957 Test including 7/44 in the first innings.

Rory Burns made his debut in one of the more curious CC matches. He opened the batting against Old Malvernians at Whitgift in 2011 with another Surrey batsmen Laurie Evans. The wicket was damp following storms over previous days and more rain forced the players off after 21 overs with Whitgiftians on 79-4.

An early lunch was taken following which the captains and umpires were unable to agree on the fitness of the square to resume play. The situation was complicated by the proximity of the playing strip for an imminent Surrey v Sussex T20 game a few days later. Result was that the Whitgiftians conceded and the match was awarded to Malvern.