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2nd XI v Merchiston
by Our Our Eastern Correspondent - Pavil Yun
This was to be a 25 over match - much to the joy of the team, who are going from strength to strength and wanting more cricket. In the end neither team used the full compliment of overs.
Merchiston won the toss and fell straight into the well-oiled trap and put us in to bat, so Douglas and Ali strode to the crease and took guard (they promised to return it when they had finished with it). Both batsmen struggled to find the line and were wont to swish around and completely miss very playable balls.
The opposition bowlers were pretty good and, apart from a few sprayed wide, were accurate enough to get the batsmen to have to play a shot. That these shots were not full blooded affairs was sad, but inevitable, as neither really moved their feet.
But bad balls were punished and the score moved slowly to 18 when disaster struck. Ali decided that front foot batting was not the cool thing to do and was subsequently bowled whilst resting on the back foot - and he was sent to the tree to think again!
Cap Heck limped out to the crease, having sustained an injury in athletics. (Memo to Athletics coach about potential harm running and exercising contributes to 2nd XI members. Ed) But he also refused to move his foot towards the ball (No flaming wonder as it was his foot that had been injured! Ed) and was a little unsure about where to hit the ball.
A while later Douglas shouted “Yes”, which galvanised Heck into some forward momentum. The command was immediately rescinded with a bellowed “NO” to which Heck responded by skidding to a stop and beginning his return. “Yes” was again hopefully called by Douglas and poor Heck had to about-turn and set off again. “No, no - get back”, was finally muttered by a hesitant Douglas and poor Heck was stranded mid pitch. That he had been hit full toss on the toes, nearly incapacitating him, bore no relevance to the calling of quick runs as far as Douglas was concerned. Cap Heck limped off!
Bang, crash, wallop, ooops. Geordie’s innings in a nutshell! But he did score 21 valuable runs and ran well between the wickets - even Douglas had trouble getting to the other end in time! (Hoist by his own petard, eh? Ed) And it was from this moment that one of those inexplicable 2nd XI moments happen and ripple through the rest of the team.
Geordie decided to step to leg when the ball hurled at him was in fact directly in line for his middle stump. Inevitably his wicket was a bit of a tangled mess of stumps and bails flying everywhere. With a resigned shrug and sheepish grin towards Little Coach, he set off for the sandwiches.
Douglas was the next to go - run out. (Serves him right I say! Ed) His contribution of 28 runs was very welcome and he was the batsman who showed most diligence and perseverance in his stay at the crease.
From that moment onwards it was a sorry trail of batsmen to-ing and fro-ing. One-shot Charlie scored a blistering four first ball and then stepped away to leg to allow his second delivery to hit his off stump. Archie decided to play his shot too early and gave catching practice to mid on.
George, needing to be different, stepped to off for a leg stump annihilation, and Leo joined the Stepping Away Club as well. (Free membership available to any member of the 2nd XI. Ed) What had been in the rain that had been lightly falling during the innings?
Jake’s membership had not run out and he came in and went out carrying a Duck as his prize and Lachlan was awarded the Golden Life Membership by running away to leg! Toni the Spaniard scored 1 run on his debut and refused to relinquish his wicket. X. Tras was a heavy scorer with 17 and the team had made an encouraging 89 runs. Would it be enough to bowl at? Read on ...
Geordie and Douglas opened with two maidens (what they were doing on the pitch remains a mystery. Ed) and in Geordie’s second over Douglas caught and bowled Merchiston’s No. 2. What a great start and Geordie, also wanting his name in the bowling credits, bowled their No. 3 for 0. 2 for 11 only 5 runs having been scored by the bat!
Having exhausted themselves with three overs apiece (!) George and Ali turned their arms over, George finding it a little tricky to find line and length. One batsman took him for two sixes but, undeterred, George had him trapped LBW before he could do any more damage. Deciding to spin his third over George struck again witha ball pitching a long way outside off stump and taking the leg stump bail. Pure genius. (Mine’s a Guinness. Ed)
Ali’s unasuming delivery style takes the batsmen by surprise as the ball does all sorts of interesting things on its flight path. Wickets were taken on his 3rd, 7th and 10th deliveries to render Merchiston a little rudderless at 7 for 40.
But Merchy was not finished and the batsmen swung lustily at anything we were able to chuck at them. Runs began to gather momentum and nerves began to twitch. In a bizarre episode the ball was being thrown back to the bowler who miss-fielded, allowing the ball to dribble into the stumps and dislodge a bail. A wild shout went up from Douglas at mid off as he had seen that the batsman was wandering about the pitch out of his crease. The Umpire nodded sagely and dismissed the batsman. As it was this batsman who had been smiting the bowling it was a timely dismissal!
With 20 runs to get and 2 wickets left, the openers were brought back on and the job was done. It could have been much closer had not the fielding been a lot smarter than usual - so well done everyone in the field. I’m sorry to say that Lachlan missed an opportunity to catch his first match catch - but it was a difficult one down at his ankles. It was pouched but obviously Lachlan didn’t like the experience and allowed it to escape. Never mind there will be other opportunities!
Well done all of you for another good team effort and especially as the fielding was done with only 10 men - poor Cap Heck was blinding and hecking sitting against a tree having been incapacitated by that blow to the foot - it was certainly a blow to the team. Let’s hope he’s fit for the Cargilfield game on Wednesday. Archie Rettie stood in as keeper and did an excellent job - so it’s OK Heck, there’s someone waiting in the wings to take over!! (Don’t be so cruel. Ed)
Click on any photo below to see it in glorious full size with comment. Priceless!
That's enough pics - get back to the text by clicking here!
Click here for detailed stats of the 2nd XI's performance - you won't regret it!
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David Peek, 18/05/2009 |
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