Z/Yen has a long and arguably glorious history of messing around with cricket.

Since the last century, Now&ZYen has irregularly reported cricket scores from Z/Yen's charity matches, including a baseball-style score of 16 runs by Michael Mainelli in the very first match.

10 years later, Now&ZYen reported on more derring-do from Messrs Harris and Mainelli. By then, Michael and Ian had received some professional coaching at Lord's on how to bat "properly", hence their batting partnership in which time seemed to stand still, as did the scoreboard. Still, that 2008 report suggests that Michael might find his mojo in other aspects of cricket, such as bowling and fielding.

But in the summer of 2024, Michael was honoured, at Lord's, with the enviable task of ringing the five minute bell, to summon players to the field of play during the England v Sri Lanka test match. Ian was granted filming rights and duly uploaded his epic 18 second video to TikTok. You can view the clip of Michael ringing the Lord's bell by clicking this link.

Ian was thrilled with the response he received from TikTok - more than 200 clicks. At the Z/Yen team meeting a few days later, Ian proudly informed the team that his video had gone viral. Bikash informed the gathering that a short video taken by his wife, Raksha, on their recent visit to Nepal, had also gone viral...with 1.3 Million hits. Here is a link to Raksha's charming clip, in which Raksha surprises an old friend by turning up at her wedding.

Bikash was far too polite to suggest that people might leave Ian's TikTok of Michael bell-ringing early, out of exhaustion and boredom. Ian was far too polite to suggest, counterfactually, that his hit rate was higher than Raksha's, despite what the TikTok hit counter says. We can assure Now&ZYen readers that boasting about numbers is a very well-humoured and entertaining pastime at Z/Yen. Now, about those cricket scores way back when...