Middlesex in the Community’s (MITC’s) City Cup Squad recently completed its 2025 season. The City Cup is an initiative that saw the community teams of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and Cricket East each enter a squad of 16-24 year old cricketers, who do not get regular, high level, hardball cricket opportunities to compete against each other in a range of formats.
The MITC squad was chosen via a trial process that took place at the Middlesex Indoor Cricket School, in Finchley, across 3 nights in June. 26 players trialled and from that a final squad of 16 was chosen by MiTC coach Sajeewa Karunaratne assisted by Coach Keval Jadhav.
With the competition kicking off just ahead of south Asian heritage month, it was quite poignant that Middlesex in the Community fielded a team made up of players of South Asian heritage in entirety. With 6 Afghan, 5 Bangladeshi, 4 Indian and 1 Pakistani origin player in the side. The team was led by Dhruv Raj with Hamedzai as vice-captain. MiTC’s side had players from all corners of the county, with a healthy split between the east, west and north of Middlesex.
Each County, in the competition, hosted a match day respectively, with Essex playing hosts to the first of the 50-over contests. On 22nd July the teams arrived at South Woodford CC for what was supposed to be a 40 over match. Rain intervened and when play was able to resume the match was reduced to 35 overs a side. MITC were playing against their ‘south of the river’ rivals Surrey in their first match, and after losing the toss - Surrey were dismissed for 144 in 34 overs. MITC had a nerve wracking reply, eventually winning by 1 wicket in the 33rd over – with Hamed & Harshal Patel playing starring roles in the Middlesex win. In the other game of the day Cricket East beat Essex to set up a final versus Middlesex.
Matchday 2 was Middlesex’s turn to host at Edmonton CC on the 6th August. This saw the winners from the previous matches (MITC and Cricket East) play in one fixture, with the losers from Matchday 1 (Surrey and Essex) playing in the other.
Due to ground conditions on the day, the fixtures were reduced to a 25 over match for Middlesex’s tie versus Luton. After winning the toss, Middlesex opted to bat and put on 146 for 8 in 25 overs. In reply, Cricket East chased the target in comfortable fashion, getting there with 4 overs and 6 wickets in hand.
Matchday 3 saw the start of the T20-leg of the competition kick-oof. Each side were supposed to play 2 T20 matches scheduled at Old Wimbledonians CC, in Surrey, on 13th August. Middlesex faced Essex in the 1st match of the day and despite a good bowling performance restricting Essex to 137/9 off 20 overs, the reply never really got going and MITC ended on 111/7 off 20 overs. Following a tea interval the British summer weather intervened and thunderstorms saw the second game of the day (against Cricket East) abandoned and pushed back to final matchday.
The final matchday, on August 20th, saw the MITC squad make the journey to Dunstable Town CC in Bedfordshire. Following the rain the week before MITC were to play T20’s against Cricket East and Surrey (to make sure everyone played the round robin fixtures). After being asked to field by Cricket East, MITC bowled them out for 136 in the 19th over of the innings. Before chasing the runs down in the 18th over and winning by 2 wickets. In this match Essa was the star performer with figures of 4-1-10-5, before guiding the run chase home, finishing not out. The last game of the City Cup season was a T20 against Surrey. Unfortunately for MITC the result was reversed from the 1st game of the season. After being put into bat MITC were bowled out for 89, with Surrey reaching the target with 6 wickets to spare.
All-in-all it was hugely successful maiden stint for the Middlesex in the Community side in the City Cup, with the players quickly forming a bond, training hard and playing together as one over the 4 Matchdays at all ends of London. Hopefully this becomes the start of a brand new side of confident young individuals, with several of the players delighted at being given the opportunity to compete and showcase their skills against their fellow London rivals.
MITC’s City Cup squad following the 1st game of the season against Surrey
