Match Reports: Saturday 21st May
Girls' Tennis against Strathallan
and
Boys' Cricket against Merchiston
U11 Cricket
Belhaven beat Merchiston by 5 wickets.
Winning the toss and putting Merchiston into bat, Belhaven could feasibly have had three wickets in the first over. Two clear drops and a half-chance were followed by two more in the second over and our calmness under the pressure of a real-game situation was not good. That said, nerves were soon settled as Sam took a catch at the second attempt off Alfie and we were off. Although Merchiston took the score to 49 runs after 11 overs, they were able to add only another ten runs to that after the designated 20 overs.
Wilbur bowled quick, and for the most part accurately, taking a wicket caught behind by Sam, Hector bowled cleverly, a mixture of spin and speed, clean bowling one batsman and then in his third over bowling four spin bowls followed by a quick ball which completely foxed the beleaguered batsman. Alfie took a wicket and also caused a run-out and Rollo and Charlie T. both bowled clean wickets, possibly a little expensively to start with but tightening up as the later order came in. Harry also bowled well and happily took a wicket, caught by Wilbur. Merchiston 59 for 8 off 20 overs.
Reaching 59 never looked like being too much trouble for this good team and I was able to retire my stronger batsmen in order to give others a chance and we managed to get eight players out on the wicket. Wilbur and Alfie started well until Alfie got himself out with a shanked shot high on the offside and Sam thumped a few fours and twos to put us well and truly in the driving seat. Tommy and Wilf were both sadly bowled to good balls but other than that a combination of the middle order and wides/no-balls got us over the line with 8 overs to spare. Belhaven 60 for 3 off 12.1 overs.
So a comfortable win in the end but we will need to improve our basic fielding; catching, stopping and throwing back in in one motion. Furthermore our batting would benefit from a little more concentration on those balls on stumps; defend when you have to!
| Bowling | Batting |
| Wilbur 1 for 12 off 3 overs. | Sam 14 (ret.) |
| Hector 2 for 7 off 3 overs. | Wilbur 13 (ret.) |
| Alfie 1 for 4 off 3 overs. | Archie S. 6 (ret.) |
| Rollo 1 for 13 off 3 overs. | Alfie 5 (caught) |
| Will 0 for 8 off 2 overs. | Wilf 3 (bowled) |
| Charlie T. 1 for 7 off 2 overs. | Hector 2 |
| Wilf 0 for 2 off 2 overs. | Tommy 0 (bowled) |
| Harry 1 for 0 off 1 over. | Harry C. 0 |
| Tommy 0 for 6 off 1 over. |
Men of the Match: Any one of Hector and Alfie, for their bowling and Wilbur for bowling and batting too.
Caption competition:
Captions to be sent to Noel Curry. Prize will be a sample of the space dust retrieved from ball on re-entry!
Next match: St. Mary’s (h.), Wednesday 25th May, 2022, 14:15.
