St Andrews University Staff Cricket Club

Match Reports 2006

Ben Agate, skippering the St. Andrews side in the absence of regular captain Stan Frankland and injured vice-captain Scott Richardson, won the toss and chose to put the opposition in on an exceedingly green wicket. Agate took the new ball himself with Ed Cackett, and there were several good appeals early on, before Agate got the breakthrough, pinning the slow-scoring R. Lynch LBW for 8. Cackett then struck in the very next over, castling the other Rossie opener, B. Stephens, for 12. The St. Andrews opening pair bowled well, constricting Rossie to 32 for 2 from the first 8 overs.

The first change pairing of John Gilmore and Sam Moss continued the good work of the opening bowlers, but the left-handed W. McGibbon (46) was by now getting into his stride, pushing the pace a bit. Gilmore had earlier discovered, to his surprise (and everyone else's amusement), that he has two feet, having only brought enough shoes for one foot - so he played in a rather-too-large pair of borrowed trainers. The skipper kept ringing the bowling changes, with Alex Smith bowling a couple of overs and Anil Jayasundera one which contained some promising deliveries as well as a few-too-many wides. Patrick Jess and Tom Brown were then brought on to bowl at the death, conceding just 16 runs between them off the last 3 overs. Jess also forced A. Caddick (20*) to retire hurt minus a tooth after he top-edged an attempted pull into his mouth, and had W. McGibbon stumped by an alert Cam Hall. Some suicidal running between the wickets followed, which brought the dismissal of C. Robertson for a duck, calmly run out by Euan McNair, whose fielding was excellent throughout. Mention must also be made of Vit Matuska, playing for the first time in several weeks after injury who continued to impress with his dedication in the field.

Cam Hall and John Gilmore, went out to open the innings for St. Andrews, requiring just over 6 runs per over to overhaul the Rossie total of 120. Gilmore was immediately off to a fine start, with some attacking strokes behind square on the leg-side off the bowling of A. Milne. Robertson, bowling at the other end, proved more difficult to get away, conceding just 11 runs from his full allocation of 4 overs. The St. Andrews opening pair, however, were able to more-or-less keep up with the required run rate throughout. There was some excellent running between the wickets, with quick singles well run and two runs taken where some batsmen may have settled for one! Hall (41*) looked in particularly good touch, never looking in any trouble and kept the scoreboard ticking over with plenty of 1s and 2s as well as the occasional boundary. Gilmore, on the other hand, was more aggressive, hitting 8 fours in his unbeaten 69, and hitting over the infield on several occasions - resulting in 3 dropped catches, some of them difficult and some not so. Both openers continued unbeaten, scoring runs off all the opposition bowlers and providing the rest of the team with a lesson in how to perfectly time a run chase.

This was a good performance from St. Andrews, both in the field - where the fielding was mostly tight, although again there were a few too many extras - and with the bat. Ben Agate did a good job as stand-in captain, as well as proving himself particularly adept at disappearing when required for umpiring duty!