Last week saw members of the Yahoo! UK office participating in a cricket tournament of “Internet giants” at the legendary Lords — not only the home of world cricket but also the oldest, most established cricket venue in the world. In the first of a series of annual events, Yahoo!, Google UK, and Lastminute.com played against each other, with the best two teams then competing in a nail-biting final.

First up: Google vs. Yahoo!. Around 100 employees were in the stands, but it was the Yahoo! crowd that really got behind the team, which inspired some great batting — with two Yahoos scoring 30 and one scoring 3 huge 6’s in a row. The Yahoo! team finally finished on 137, which made Google’s job extremely difficult.

The Yahoo! team took to the field knowing that a good bowling and fielding performance was needed. After some excellent aggressive bowling from Yahoo! (one bouncer hit the Google batsman in the chin!), we got the breakthrough we needed and caught their best batter on the boundary. Another plucky Yahoo! then picked up the bravery award for putting his face in the way of a ball to stop it from going for a 4. The bowling attack then dispatched Google for a paltry 120 all out and the celebrations from the Yahoos watching in the stands were reminiscent of what I witnessed at last year’s World Cup.

Next up was the final against Lastminute. The sun was blazing and, by this time, about 200 Yahoos had gathered at Lords in time to lend support. With Yahoo! batting first, there was amazing support from the stands (maybe the free drinks helped!) and every 4 & 6 runs were greeted by a yodel delivered from the Yahoo! bus P.A. system. Many Yahoos joined in with fantastic yodels — something that’s pretty rare for Brits with “stiff upper lips”!

After another good batting performance, Yahoo! finished on 118. With 12 balls remaining and the final very delicately poised, two amazing catches from Yahoos set up a tense finish. On the last ball of the final, Lastminute needed 3 runs to win. They only managed 2, which meant an amazing draw.

After consulting the rules of the mini-tournament, someone pointed out that a player from both teams had to run the length of the wicket and then down a pint! Conveniently, this was one of our sales guy’s party tricks. So, in front of a packed crowd, he raced the Lastminute player. Although he finished his pint just after the Lastminute bloke, he did so without spilling a drop and the impartial (Google) judge awarded the win to Yahoo!!

A huge round of applause for the Yahoo! UK team for its victory and to all the supporters from the London office who really helped the team to focus and beat the competition!

Andrew Cocker
Yahoo! UK Cricket Team Captain
Senior Marketing Manager, Yahoo! UK & Ireland