This might seem like a redundant post, but given the number of new faces around, curiosity in our club is bound to increase. ‘The more the merrier’ will apply, especially if ‘the more’ have a few characters!

To the uninitiated, we are the MCC, a group of about 75, based in and around the Natick & Framingham township’s in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. We work in the field of software to earn enough to pay for the bills, and then some. Truth be told, work is only a way to stay busy through the winter; to allow us to get together over the summer to play cricket.

Some of us would like to have cricket proclaimed an official religion, with hundred’s of God’s to choose from to worship. But fortunately, and by no small means, thanks to our families, our place of work, friends and society as a whole, we have a life. The pursuit to have cricket anointed a religion isn’t important enough, just yet.

Coming back to earth, we mostly play the hard-tennis-ball brand of cricket (refer to the footnote below for leather-ball cricket) starting towards the end of April through to the end of September.

We start with practice and pick-up games early on in the season; on a weekday evenings – between Monday and Thursday, 6 PM to 8 PM – and weekends – Saturday and/or Sunday, 9 AM to 12 PM. Practice and game-day details are announced in our Facebook group ‘MPLBuzz‘ and on our Twitter handle ‘@mplbuzz’

Our season kick’s over to a higher gear starting in June, where-in we participate in the NECA league – a T20 league of about 25 teams, spread across two divisions, that play for the ‘Friendship Cup’. Teams in each division, play 10 matches (plus/minus 1) in the round-robin stage. The top 6-8 teams from each division advance to the playoff’s for that division.

The winners of each division get their hands on a rolling-trophy, with members of the winning team getting certificates and medals. Further, the top two teams from Division B are promoted to Division A at the end of the season, while the bottom two teams from Division A are relegated to Division B. We have two teams in NECA, both in Division A.

The highlight of the season though is the MPL. The MPL is our very own franchise based cricket league. The MPL founded in 2009, is held June through August. The player’s auction is held in early June, – and is a lot of fun, mixed in with a bit of ruckus.

We had three teams for the 2009-2011 seasons. We grew to add a fourth team in 2012, and a fifth team in 2013, given the increasing numbers amongst our ranks.

Each MPL team plays the other team’s twice in the round-robin stage, for a total of eight matches – each a 14 overs an inning affair. The top three teams proceed to the playoff’s – the top ranked team at the end of round-robin stage proceeds to the final, while teams ranked second and third face-off in the lone semi-final. The final,  also a one-off affair, is a fight for the top honors and bragging rights until the next season, and more.

We carry detailed statistics for the 2012 and 2011 seasons, with our in-home developed player-rankings. Do browse through the archives.

We also field a team – Eagles Cricket Club C – in the MSCL, the leather-ball cricket league for the greater Boston area.  We participate in the Pro40 and T20 tournaments in the MSCL.

P.S.: We don’t give out homeworks!

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