Crow Road v Whiteinch
WDCU Div 5, Old Anniesland, 25/08/2007
Whiteinch won toss and elected to bat
Whiteinch
McGinnis lbw b I Hussain 6
Salar b Christie 34
# Wasif c Stewart b Allen 75
Akhtar run out (Rixon) 68
Aamar c Blaal Hussain b Allen 4
Adnan b Allen 4
* Quddoos b Mehmood 3
Sohail b Mehmood 0
Hogg not out 1
Mahsood b Blaal Hussain 7
Zulfiqar not out 2
Extras 25
Total (9 wkts, 40 ovs) 229
Allen 11-1-44-3, Mehmood 12-2-26-2, I Hussain 4-0-29-1,
Christie 5-0-41-1, Iqbal 6-0-67-0, Bilal Hussain 1-0-6-0,
Blaal Hussain 1-0-5-1
Crow Road
# A Mishra b Sohail 2
G Smillie b Akhtar 1
T Mehmood b Quddoos 79
G Stewart b Akhtar 1
A Christie run out 0
* A Rixon b Akhtar 0
I Hussain b Akhtar 2
Bilal Hussain b Quddoos 1
Z Iqbal not out 9
Blaal Hussain st Wasif b Quddoos 0
E Allen b Mahsood 0
Extras 26
Total (all out, 25.4 ovs) 121
Sohail 4-0-19-1, Akhtar 8-3-10-4, Quddoos 9-0-54-3,
Mahsood 4.4-0-30-1
Whiteinch won by 108 runs
Crow Road 6 pts, Whiteinch 25 pts
Match Report
Crow Road’s 2007 season drew to a close in disappointing fashion at Old Anniesland as a strong Whiteinch side eased to victory in a match marred by some unsporting behaviour. Whiteinch, Victoria’s 2nd XI, fielded one player who wouldn’t be out of place in the SNCL, and he duly put in match-winning performances with both bat and ball to ensure Crow Road were never in contention. Despite this clear gulf in class, however, the visitors still felt compelled to produce a succession of scandalous umpiring decisions during their batting innings which set an unpleasant tone for the rest of the match. The nadir was reached when a succession of close shouts by Tariq were rejected by an umpire who claimed “I will never give an lbw, so don’t bother appealing for them”. The Whiteinch captain then ran on to the field to confront Tariq about his ‘excessive appealing’ – behaviour which may result in Crow Road following the lead of Home Park and lodging a formal complaint about the Victoria side with the WDCU committee.
The match itself was an 80-over affair, with the start delayed until 2pm due to a sodden outfield. Given the rooster-tail of spray that kicked up every time the ball rolled across the grass, it was a bad toss to lose, but lose it Rixon did and Crow Road were duly asked to bowl first. For a variety of reasons, only 7 of Crow Road’s XI actually made it on to the field for the first over, but Ewan Allen showed he didn’t need any fielders by keeping the ball full and straight and pinning the Whiteinch opener plumb in front, only to receive a shake of the head from the umpire.
Crow Road were soon up to a full eleven, but there wasn’t much to chase in the field as the ball kept hitting the pads. With the umpires turning down Ewan and Tariq’s every appeal, however, there was little option but to try other bowlers. Ijaz came on and somehow managed to win an lbw decision with his fifth ball, then Yoda replaced Tariq and picked up the second wicket in his third over. These successes brought Wasif and Akhtar together at the crease and they demonstrated the carnage that can be wreaked when aggressive players with a good eye take on the short boundaries around the Old Anniesland astro. Ijaz, Yoda and Zishaan all came in for heavy punishment as 6 after 4 after 6 was dispatched either straight or over the leg side and the score raced towards 200 at close to a run a ball.
Ewan came back on to stem the tide and made the crucial breakthrough when he had Wasif sky one over point, where the ever-reliable Gordi Stewart ran back to take a fine catch. This was the start of Ewan’s best spell yet for the club as he cleaned up the rest of the middle order to finish with 3-44. Meanwhile Akhtar ran himself out, Tariq came back on to take two wickets in two balls and Blaal inevitably took a wicket in his first over (as he has done every time he’s bowled for Crow Road this year). In spite of this late collapse, however, Whiteinch’s final score of 229-9 off 40 overs still represented a tough target for Crow Road.
Back in June, a top three of Smillie, Ashutosh and Tariq scored 152 between them to lay the foundations for the epic run-chase against Scotindians. Now, the same three players had to repeat the trick if Crow Road were to mount a victory charge. Unfortunately, just two balls into the innings, Ashutosh missed a straight one and was sent packing. This may have been a sensible move on his part, however, as the bowler who opened from the other end turned out to be surely one of the quickest ever seen in Division 5. Not content with his earlier 50, Akhtar destroyed the Crow Road middle order with bowling well in excess of 70mph, made all the more difficult to play because his run-up and arm action were relatively slow.
In his last game for GHK before moving to Bournemouth, Smillie was bowled by one he claimed not to have seen – an unfortunate end to his fantastic season for the 3s, in which he scored almost double the runs of the next best batsman despite missing several matches with a broken finger. Gordi Stewart replaced him and clung on grimly for 22 balls before he also had his stumps demolished by Akhtar. This brought Yoda to the wicket and he provided a bit of black comedy among all the carnage, being bowled first ball off what turned out to be an Akhtar no-ball, only to be run out having wandered from his crease. The procession continued as Rixon and Ijaz were also bowled by Akhtar, who was finally, mercifully brought off after completing 8 overs, 7 of which had seen no runs come off the bat.
Having managed to survive the collapse, Tariq was now well placed to cash in against the change bowlers and he unsurprisingly let rip with a thrilling barrage of boundaries. At one stage he hit consecutive balls for 46646614, moving from 29 to 79 in the space of 18 balls and adding 64 for the 8th wicket with Zishaan (who contributed 4). After Tariq was bowled by a full toss, Zishaan continued to work the ball around nicely, but received scant support from Billy, Blaal and Ewan and was left stranded as the innings closed on 121 (triggering a mass exodus to Kelburne to watch the conclusion of the 1s title-clinching victory)..
With nine home batsmen failing to pass two, the scorecard didn’t make for very pretty reading, but the overall haul of 6 bonus points was sufficient to confirm Crow Road in 6th place in the final Division 5 table for 2007, a fair reflection on a solid season. Given that we lost both of last year’s opening batsmen and one of the opening bowlers over the winter, this year could have been a real struggle. However, a number of squad players have upped their game and contributed the extra runs and wickets required, meaning that our results have stayed roughly the same as in 2006. Of course next year we won’t have Smillie, so each player will have to improve by 20% again to fill the gap, but we’re such a young team that I’m sure we can manage that and, with some luck, mount a promotion challenge.
Ultimately, though, the main key to success in Division 5 is simply to field a full team week-in, week-out. Thanks to the 45 players...yes, 45...who appeared for Crow Road this season, we managed to do it in pretty much every match. You can’t underestimate how important that is in securing a good league placing, so to all 45 of you, thanks very much and see you again next season.
Saturday 25 August 2007
Sunday 12 August 2007
Crow Road v Hillend, 12/08/2007
Crow Road v Hillend
WDCU Div 5, Old Anniesland, 12/08/2007
Crow Road won toss and elected to field
Hillend
* Robertson b Allen 17
Singh b B Hussain 5
# Baum lbw b Fleming 12
Cahn lbw b Christie 2
Keast c B Hussain b A Hussain 2
Sperling b Fleming 0
Farrell c Christie b A Hussain 0
Terrace b A Hussain 2
Jesus not out 8
McDougall c B Hussain b A Hussain 0
Extras 27
Total (all out, 33.1 ovs) 75
Allen 7-1-14-1, B Hussain 7-1-23-1, Fleming 7-3-16-2,
Christie 5-0-13-1, A Hussain 7.1-3-7-4
Crow Road
# A Mishra not out 58
I Thomson run out 7
G Smillie not out 3
Extras 8
Total (1 wkt, 10.4 ovs) 76
* A Rixon, A Christie, A Hussain, S Alcock, I Miller, A Fleming, B Hussain and E Allen did not bat
Farrell 4-0-12-0, Singh 4-0-44-0, Keast 1.4-1-4-0,
Cahn 1-0-16-0
Crow Road won by 9 wickets
Crow Road 25 pts, Hillend 1 pt
Match Report
After persistent rain put paid to Crow Road’s fixture against Scotindians on Saturday, it was a relief to get some play on a dreary Sunday as Hillend visited Old Anniesland. Showers disrupted play on more than one occasion, the astroturf was in pretty poor condition and the outfield resembled a meadow of wheat, but Crow Road made the best of a bad job and raced to victory over the Greenock side in less than 45 overs playing time.
The toss was all-important and, after tails failed for the Hillend captain, Rixon got the chance to unleash a potent Crow Road attack on the visitors, with Ewan Allen and Billy Hussain heading up a strong quintet of bowlers. The Hillend openers made solid early progress, but the damp astro wicket was causing a number of balls to stay low and before too long Singh was dismissed when a short ball from Billy skidded past his attempted pull and hit the stumps. Moments later a sharp shower forced the players from the field for 15 minutes and, with the first ball after the resumption, Ewan removed the other opener to claim his first senior wicket for GHK. This proved to be the key breakthrough as none of the remaining batsmen were able to get the ball through the damp, overgrown infield and the Hillend run rate dried up completely.
Wickets also continued to tumble – Yoda’s second ball trapped Cahn lbw to make it 42-3 and then Andy Fleming embarked on a spell of 3-3-0-2 which included a number of superb balls, although the two wicket taking deliveries weren’t among them, both under-pitched but keeping low. Adil joined in the carnage when he came on to bowl leg breaks, having Farrell well caught by Yoda in the deep, then turning one past the defences of the Hillend No. 8 to take the score to 55-7. In all, 4 wickets had gone down for 3 runs in 5 overs.
If anyone was going to save Hillend, it surely had to be the next batsman in, listed in the scorebook as ‘Jesus’. He did stick around for a while but was let down by his two remaining disciples, who both found Adil’s flight and accuracy too much to handle and popped up catches to Billy at short cover. With Hillend a player short, this brought the innings to a close at 75, easily the lowest total against Crow Road this season. The conditions were heavily in the favour of the fielding side, but the bowlers still had to maintain a good line to make the most of them, and by and large that’s what they did (Yoda’s exploratory over of spin being the notable exception!).
After the tea break was prolonged by a heavy shower, the ground was wetter than ever as Ashutosh and Stroppy walked out to open the Crow Road innings. The chances of hitting a boundary all along the ground were now nil, which didn’t suit Stroppy’s game at all and reduced him to working singles and the odd 2. At the other end, however, Ashutosh was going ballistic. Seemingly oblivious to the uneven bounce, he survived a couple of early scares to demolish the Hillend bowling attack, negating the problem of long grass by repeatedly launching the ball in the air for 6s or one-bounce 4s.
At one stage, he clouted 35 off just 9 balls as an over from Singh disappeared for 20 and another from Cahn went for 16. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Stroppy was run out when Ashutosh didn’t respond to a call for an easy single, but it didn’t particularly matter as Smillie came in at No. 3 and hit the winning runs soon after. This was his first innings since he broke his finger four weeks ago, and thankfully he came through it without any discomfort.
The star of the show, though, was Ashutosh, who had brought up his first GHK 50 with his fifth 6 and eventually walked off unbeaten on 58 (40 mins, 31 balls, 5x4, 5x6). He scored over 76% of the runs in the Crow Road innings, surely some kind of record, and made a mockery of conditions that had caused problems for every other batsman in the match.
Crow Road’s 4th and easiest win of the season leaves us sitting comfortably in mid-table around the 54% mark. Victory in the last two games of the season could just sneak us into the top four, but this result indicates how much more could be achieved if it we were able to field a decent-strength side every week. None of today’s bowling changes made life any easier for the Hillend batsmen and, had Crow Road lost early wickets, we had regular opening batsmen lined up to come in at Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7! The only negative was the state of the astro and the outfield. Seeing as the 3s haven’t had a single chance to play on the Old Anniesland square this season, the least we can ask is for the astroturf and its surroundings to be kept in far better condition than what we put up with today.
WDCU Div 5, Old Anniesland, 12/08/2007
Crow Road won toss and elected to field
Hillend
* Robertson b Allen 17
Singh b B Hussain 5
# Baum lbw b Fleming 12
Cahn lbw b Christie 2
Keast c B Hussain b A Hussain 2
Sperling b Fleming 0
Farrell c Christie b A Hussain 0
Terrace b A Hussain 2
Jesus not out 8
McDougall c B Hussain b A Hussain 0
Extras 27
Total (all out, 33.1 ovs) 75
Allen 7-1-14-1, B Hussain 7-1-23-1, Fleming 7-3-16-2,
Christie 5-0-13-1, A Hussain 7.1-3-7-4
Crow Road
# A Mishra not out 58
I Thomson run out 7
G Smillie not out 3
Extras 8
Total (1 wkt, 10.4 ovs) 76
* A Rixon, A Christie, A Hussain, S Alcock, I Miller, A Fleming, B Hussain and E Allen did not bat
Farrell 4-0-12-0, Singh 4-0-44-0, Keast 1.4-1-4-0,
Cahn 1-0-16-0
Crow Road won by 9 wickets
Crow Road 25 pts, Hillend 1 pt
Match Report
After persistent rain put paid to Crow Road’s fixture against Scotindians on Saturday, it was a relief to get some play on a dreary Sunday as Hillend visited Old Anniesland. Showers disrupted play on more than one occasion, the astroturf was in pretty poor condition and the outfield resembled a meadow of wheat, but Crow Road made the best of a bad job and raced to victory over the Greenock side in less than 45 overs playing time.
The toss was all-important and, after tails failed for the Hillend captain, Rixon got the chance to unleash a potent Crow Road attack on the visitors, with Ewan Allen and Billy Hussain heading up a strong quintet of bowlers. The Hillend openers made solid early progress, but the damp astro wicket was causing a number of balls to stay low and before too long Singh was dismissed when a short ball from Billy skidded past his attempted pull and hit the stumps. Moments later a sharp shower forced the players from the field for 15 minutes and, with the first ball after the resumption, Ewan removed the other opener to claim his first senior wicket for GHK. This proved to be the key breakthrough as none of the remaining batsmen were able to get the ball through the damp, overgrown infield and the Hillend run rate dried up completely.
Wickets also continued to tumble – Yoda’s second ball trapped Cahn lbw to make it 42-3 and then Andy Fleming embarked on a spell of 3-3-0-2 which included a number of superb balls, although the two wicket taking deliveries weren’t among them, both under-pitched but keeping low. Adil joined in the carnage when he came on to bowl leg breaks, having Farrell well caught by Yoda in the deep, then turning one past the defences of the Hillend No. 8 to take the score to 55-7. In all, 4 wickets had gone down for 3 runs in 5 overs.
If anyone was going to save Hillend, it surely had to be the next batsman in, listed in the scorebook as ‘Jesus’. He did stick around for a while but was let down by his two remaining disciples, who both found Adil’s flight and accuracy too much to handle and popped up catches to Billy at short cover. With Hillend a player short, this brought the innings to a close at 75, easily the lowest total against Crow Road this season. The conditions were heavily in the favour of the fielding side, but the bowlers still had to maintain a good line to make the most of them, and by and large that’s what they did (Yoda’s exploratory over of spin being the notable exception!).
After the tea break was prolonged by a heavy shower, the ground was wetter than ever as Ashutosh and Stroppy walked out to open the Crow Road innings. The chances of hitting a boundary all along the ground were now nil, which didn’t suit Stroppy’s game at all and reduced him to working singles and the odd 2. At the other end, however, Ashutosh was going ballistic. Seemingly oblivious to the uneven bounce, he survived a couple of early scares to demolish the Hillend bowling attack, negating the problem of long grass by repeatedly launching the ball in the air for 6s or one-bounce 4s.
At one stage, he clouted 35 off just 9 balls as an over from Singh disappeared for 20 and another from Cahn went for 16. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Stroppy was run out when Ashutosh didn’t respond to a call for an easy single, but it didn’t particularly matter as Smillie came in at No. 3 and hit the winning runs soon after. This was his first innings since he broke his finger four weeks ago, and thankfully he came through it without any discomfort.
The star of the show, though, was Ashutosh, who had brought up his first GHK 50 with his fifth 6 and eventually walked off unbeaten on 58 (40 mins, 31 balls, 5x4, 5x6). He scored over 76% of the runs in the Crow Road innings, surely some kind of record, and made a mockery of conditions that had caused problems for every other batsman in the match.
Crow Road’s 4th and easiest win of the season leaves us sitting comfortably in mid-table around the 54% mark. Victory in the last two games of the season could just sneak us into the top four, but this result indicates how much more could be achieved if it we were able to field a decent-strength side every week. None of today’s bowling changes made life any easier for the Hillend batsmen and, had Crow Road lost early wickets, we had regular opening batsmen lined up to come in at Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7! The only negative was the state of the astro and the outfield. Seeing as the 3s haven’t had a single chance to play on the Old Anniesland square this season, the least we can ask is for the astroturf and its surroundings to be kept in far better condition than what we put up with today.
Saturday 4 August 2007
Marress v Crow Road, 04/08/2007
Marress v Crow Road
WDCU Div 5, Irvine, 04/08/2007
Crow Road won toss and elected to field
Marress
Sharp b Roy 4
* M Ingram lbw b Smillie 106
Cooney b Roy 0
Conway c Rixon b Alcock 2
D Ingram b Rixon 4
Mudunuri b Alcock 0
Fernando c and b Alcock 0
Mitchell c Miller b Alcock 0
McMeeking lbw b Rixon 42
Taylor b Rixon 15
# Ram not out 0
Extras 45
Total (all out, 46.2 ovs) 218
Khan 11-3-39-0, Roy 9-1-28-2, Alcock 8-0-60-4,
Rixon 7.2-2-32-3, Smillie 9-1-30-1, Bilsland 2-0-22-0
Crow Road
S Alcock c Conway b D Ingram 17
* A Rixon b Mudunuri 29
C Bilsland b Mudunuri 2
# G Semple b D Ingram 3
I Roy c Ram b D Ingram 11
A Khan b Sharp 4
C Dickson b Mudunuri 28
I Miller not out 2
R Allen c Conway b Mudunuri 0
L McDermid not out 0
Extras 32
Total (8 wkts, 53 ovs) 128
G Smillie did not bat
M Ingram 15-6-32-0, Conway 9-3-19-0, Mudunuri 12-6-10-4,
D Ingram 7-3-19-3, Sharp 5-0-20-1, Taylor 2-0-10-0,
Cooney 3-1-6-0
Match drawn
Marress 19 pts, Crow Road 8 pts
Match Report
For the second week running a host of absences left Crow Road seriously weakened, but unlike last week’s capitulation to table-topping Home Park, Saturday’s visit to wooden spoon candidates Marress resulted in a gutsy draw. With a bowling attack significantly depleted even compared to last week, it was a superb early effort from Crow Road to have the home side at 95-7. Unfortunately the bowlers then lost their way and allowed Marress to reach 218, but the inexperienced batting line-up responded admirably and stuck it out for 53 overs to escape with a draw.
Rixon won an important toss and sent Marress in to bat on Irvine’s famously uneven pitch, choosing to open the bowling with Ali Khan and Iain “Jo” Roy. Both made tidy starts, keeping the run rate down to 2, and the pressure soon told as Jo made a double breakthrough, bowling Sharp and Cooney in consecutive overs. When he reached his 7 over limit as a U18, Steve-o came on and offered the batsmen no respite, with his left-arm line extracting some particularly unusual bounce from the pitch. Rixon responded by positioning himself at short square leg and this plan paid off almost straight away as Conway could only fend a rising delivery into his hands.
Ali took a break after 10 economical overs and was replaced by Rixon, who soon got among the wickets when the Marress No. 5 played around the line of one and was bowled. Steve-o then charged through the rest of the middle order, bowling Chatanya with a jaffer, plucking a sharp caught and bowled chance out of the air and finally inducing their No. 8 to pick out Iain at mid off. At the other end, however, the Marress captain Ingram was now well set and had started to punish Steve-o’s bowling as his team-mates fell around him, although he was extremely lucky to survive an lbw shout when hit on the full on off stump.
Ingram was joined by McMeeking at No. 9, and although he only had one shot – the one you usually associate with golf – it immediately proved effective as he smeared a couple of loose balls to the boundary to get off the mark. It was at this point that a number of things started to go wrong for Crow Road. The fielding got slacker, the field placement got a bit confused and most of all, the bowlers, who had all been performing well up to this point, lost their accuracy completely. Rixon bowled too short, Jo too wide, Ali somewhat spoiled his figures with a 12-ball, 16-run comeback over and only Smillie, brought on to bowl cutters despite his broken finger, maintained any kind of control.
Ingram’s scoring slowed up as he neared his century, but after he reached the landmark with a lofted drive for 3, some more free hitting by McMeeking took their 8th wicket partnership past 100. Then, 70-odd runs after he could have been given out, Ingram was finally adjudged lbw to Smillie and after brief resistance from the Marress No. 10, Rixon wound up the innings soon after. The final score of 218 was well above par considering the state of the wicket, and the fact that only three Marress batsmen scored more than 4 emphasised how difficult it was to get settled in. This was exactly what Crow Road’s top order would have to do, however, to stand any chance of chasing the target or batting out the 53 overs that remained.
Steve-o and Rixon made a solid start but in between every ball were on the receiving end of chat that could best be described as odd. Apparently Steve-o was a “flower” who the Marress bowlers needed to “sprinkle some seed on”, and if this wasn’t homo-erotic enough, there was also some indecent exposure in one of the overs when Steve-o found himself facing two balls more than he would have expected. It might have helped Marress if they’d concentrated more on their bowling and less on their banter as the opening partnership moved past 50 without too much trouble, the highlight being a glorious cut for 4 by Steve-o and the lowlight a costly drop by their keeper after Rixon edged one straight up in the air.
The first wicket fell in the 20th over when Chatanya, who routed Crow Road back in June, bowled Rixon with one that stayed lower than he’d expected. Vidal came in at No. 3 to keep things steady and did his job well, seeing off 6 tricky overs before he too was bowled. Meanwhile, Craig Dickson and Ross Purdon had showed up to spectate and, as Crow Road had only arrived with 10 players, there seemed no reason why one of them couldn’t bat. The idea was for Dickson to come in at No. 4 but the Marress captain asked for the rulebook to be consulted first and while this was done, Semple was sent out to the middle instead.
Fresh from a highly impressive wicket-keeping debut, Semple provided more solid support for Steve-o who by this stage had stopped scoring altogether – at one point managing just 2 runs off 47 balls. It was clear by now that winning the game was out of the question, but when Semple was unluckily bowled when the ball rolled back off his bat onto the stumps, Jo, Ali and Dickson (whose appearance didn’t seem to break any rules) were sent in at 5, 6 and 7 to try and up the scoring rate and collect some extra bonus points. Jo hit some lusty blows in his innings of 11, but soon became part of a middle order collapse triggered when Steve-o’s epic 130 minute, 109 ball 17 ended with an edge to slip. Jo then top edged a pull to a ball that bounced extravagantly and finally Ali, who had just smashed a superb off drive for 4, was bowled by a full toss. 81-3 had become 87-6 and, with 13 overs remaining, Crow Road were staring down the barrel.
Thankfully the 7th wicket pair had other ideas and put together a crucial partnership of 40. The two innings could hardly have been more different – Iain playing stonewall defence while Dickson flayed the bowling all over the park. Mixing hugely powerful shots with some sensible blocks, Dickson carried the score to 127 (and 2 extra bonus points) before he was bowled with 14 balls remaining. It was edge-of-the-seat stuff now and got even tenser when young Robert Allen became Chatanya’s 4th victim two balls later (giving Chatanya bowling figures of 26.2-10-31-11 against Crow Road this season). Two overs and two wickets remained though it was still unclear if Smillie would risk his broken finger to bat if required. Iain escaped one catchable chance to survive the 99th over, at which point Smillie returned from his umpiring stint in the middle to pad up, probably prudent given that it was Liam McDermid now on strike to the last six deliveries. Liam had been calm as he walked to the crease but his team-mates certainly weren’t after he popped the first ball straight to a close fielder who crucially put it down. After dead-batting the next ball away, he ran a leg-bye to bring Iain on strike, and Iain coolly saw out the rest of the over to confirm the draw.
Considering the 9.5 players that we travelled to Irvine with today, this represented a fine result. Apart from the 15-over spell late in their innings where everything seemed to go wrong, all our players performed near the top of their game, which was the only way we were ever going to avoid defeat. Special mentions must go to Steve-o for a strong all-round performance and to Dickson for a very timely, match-saving arrival, but everyone contributed something positive towards the result. Next week, things should be back to normality as a number of regulars return for the Scotindians/Hillend double header, but to all the not-so-regulars who’ve turned out for the team in either or both of the last two matches, I have to say a big thank you. Just fulfilling the fixtures was a big achievement, but the performance today was a particular credit to all involved.
WDCU Div 5, Irvine, 04/08/2007
Crow Road won toss and elected to field
Marress
Sharp b Roy 4
* M Ingram lbw b Smillie 106
Cooney b Roy 0
Conway c Rixon b Alcock 2
D Ingram b Rixon 4
Mudunuri b Alcock 0
Fernando c and b Alcock 0
Mitchell c Miller b Alcock 0
McMeeking lbw b Rixon 42
Taylor b Rixon 15
# Ram not out 0
Extras 45
Total (all out, 46.2 ovs) 218
Khan 11-3-39-0, Roy 9-1-28-2, Alcock 8-0-60-4,
Rixon 7.2-2-32-3, Smillie 9-1-30-1, Bilsland 2-0-22-0
Crow Road
S Alcock c Conway b D Ingram 17
* A Rixon b Mudunuri 29
C Bilsland b Mudunuri 2
# G Semple b D Ingram 3
I Roy c Ram b D Ingram 11
A Khan b Sharp 4
C Dickson b Mudunuri 28
I Miller not out 2
R Allen c Conway b Mudunuri 0
L McDermid not out 0
Extras 32
Total (8 wkts, 53 ovs) 128
G Smillie did not bat
M Ingram 15-6-32-0, Conway 9-3-19-0, Mudunuri 12-6-10-4,
D Ingram 7-3-19-3, Sharp 5-0-20-1, Taylor 2-0-10-0,
Cooney 3-1-6-0
Match drawn
Marress 19 pts, Crow Road 8 pts
Match Report
For the second week running a host of absences left Crow Road seriously weakened, but unlike last week’s capitulation to table-topping Home Park, Saturday’s visit to wooden spoon candidates Marress resulted in a gutsy draw. With a bowling attack significantly depleted even compared to last week, it was a superb early effort from Crow Road to have the home side at 95-7. Unfortunately the bowlers then lost their way and allowed Marress to reach 218, but the inexperienced batting line-up responded admirably and stuck it out for 53 overs to escape with a draw.
Rixon won an important toss and sent Marress in to bat on Irvine’s famously uneven pitch, choosing to open the bowling with Ali Khan and Iain “Jo” Roy. Both made tidy starts, keeping the run rate down to 2, and the pressure soon told as Jo made a double breakthrough, bowling Sharp and Cooney in consecutive overs. When he reached his 7 over limit as a U18, Steve-o came on and offered the batsmen no respite, with his left-arm line extracting some particularly unusual bounce from the pitch. Rixon responded by positioning himself at short square leg and this plan paid off almost straight away as Conway could only fend a rising delivery into his hands.
Ali took a break after 10 economical overs and was replaced by Rixon, who soon got among the wickets when the Marress No. 5 played around the line of one and was bowled. Steve-o then charged through the rest of the middle order, bowling Chatanya with a jaffer, plucking a sharp caught and bowled chance out of the air and finally inducing their No. 8 to pick out Iain at mid off. At the other end, however, the Marress captain Ingram was now well set and had started to punish Steve-o’s bowling as his team-mates fell around him, although he was extremely lucky to survive an lbw shout when hit on the full on off stump.
Ingram was joined by McMeeking at No. 9, and although he only had one shot – the one you usually associate with golf – it immediately proved effective as he smeared a couple of loose balls to the boundary to get off the mark. It was at this point that a number of things started to go wrong for Crow Road. The fielding got slacker, the field placement got a bit confused and most of all, the bowlers, who had all been performing well up to this point, lost their accuracy completely. Rixon bowled too short, Jo too wide, Ali somewhat spoiled his figures with a 12-ball, 16-run comeback over and only Smillie, brought on to bowl cutters despite his broken finger, maintained any kind of control.
Ingram’s scoring slowed up as he neared his century, but after he reached the landmark with a lofted drive for 3, some more free hitting by McMeeking took their 8th wicket partnership past 100. Then, 70-odd runs after he could have been given out, Ingram was finally adjudged lbw to Smillie and after brief resistance from the Marress No. 10, Rixon wound up the innings soon after. The final score of 218 was well above par considering the state of the wicket, and the fact that only three Marress batsmen scored more than 4 emphasised how difficult it was to get settled in. This was exactly what Crow Road’s top order would have to do, however, to stand any chance of chasing the target or batting out the 53 overs that remained.
Steve-o and Rixon made a solid start but in between every ball were on the receiving end of chat that could best be described as odd. Apparently Steve-o was a “flower” who the Marress bowlers needed to “sprinkle some seed on”, and if this wasn’t homo-erotic enough, there was also some indecent exposure in one of the overs when Steve-o found himself facing two balls more than he would have expected. It might have helped Marress if they’d concentrated more on their bowling and less on their banter as the opening partnership moved past 50 without too much trouble, the highlight being a glorious cut for 4 by Steve-o and the lowlight a costly drop by their keeper after Rixon edged one straight up in the air.
The first wicket fell in the 20th over when Chatanya, who routed Crow Road back in June, bowled Rixon with one that stayed lower than he’d expected. Vidal came in at No. 3 to keep things steady and did his job well, seeing off 6 tricky overs before he too was bowled. Meanwhile, Craig Dickson and Ross Purdon had showed up to spectate and, as Crow Road had only arrived with 10 players, there seemed no reason why one of them couldn’t bat. The idea was for Dickson to come in at No. 4 but the Marress captain asked for the rulebook to be consulted first and while this was done, Semple was sent out to the middle instead.
Fresh from a highly impressive wicket-keeping debut, Semple provided more solid support for Steve-o who by this stage had stopped scoring altogether – at one point managing just 2 runs off 47 balls. It was clear by now that winning the game was out of the question, but when Semple was unluckily bowled when the ball rolled back off his bat onto the stumps, Jo, Ali and Dickson (whose appearance didn’t seem to break any rules) were sent in at 5, 6 and 7 to try and up the scoring rate and collect some extra bonus points. Jo hit some lusty blows in his innings of 11, but soon became part of a middle order collapse triggered when Steve-o’s epic 130 minute, 109 ball 17 ended with an edge to slip. Jo then top edged a pull to a ball that bounced extravagantly and finally Ali, who had just smashed a superb off drive for 4, was bowled by a full toss. 81-3 had become 87-6 and, with 13 overs remaining, Crow Road were staring down the barrel.
Thankfully the 7th wicket pair had other ideas and put together a crucial partnership of 40. The two innings could hardly have been more different – Iain playing stonewall defence while Dickson flayed the bowling all over the park. Mixing hugely powerful shots with some sensible blocks, Dickson carried the score to 127 (and 2 extra bonus points) before he was bowled with 14 balls remaining. It was edge-of-the-seat stuff now and got even tenser when young Robert Allen became Chatanya’s 4th victim two balls later (giving Chatanya bowling figures of 26.2-10-31-11 against Crow Road this season). Two overs and two wickets remained though it was still unclear if Smillie would risk his broken finger to bat if required. Iain escaped one catchable chance to survive the 99th over, at which point Smillie returned from his umpiring stint in the middle to pad up, probably prudent given that it was Liam McDermid now on strike to the last six deliveries. Liam had been calm as he walked to the crease but his team-mates certainly weren’t after he popped the first ball straight to a close fielder who crucially put it down. After dead-batting the next ball away, he ran a leg-bye to bring Iain on strike, and Iain coolly saw out the rest of the over to confirm the draw.
Considering the 9.5 players that we travelled to Irvine with today, this represented a fine result. Apart from the 15-over spell late in their innings where everything seemed to go wrong, all our players performed near the top of their game, which was the only way we were ever going to avoid defeat. Special mentions must go to Steve-o for a strong all-round performance and to Dickson for a very timely, match-saving arrival, but everyone contributed something positive towards the result. Next week, things should be back to normality as a number of regulars return for the Scotindians/Hillend double header, but to all the not-so-regulars who’ve turned out for the team in either or both of the last two matches, I have to say a big thank you. Just fulfilling the fixtures was a big achievement, but the performance today was a particular credit to all involved.
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