St Andrews University Staff Cricket Club

Match Reports 2006

The Scottish weather prepared a pleasant surprise after some rainy days, providing us with a very sunny and fresh day on Saturday. St Andrews Staff Cricket Team welcomed Oslo Aliens, a team of Commonwealth fellows working in Norway, who came for an extended-weekend-trip to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Dunnikier Cricket Club. Aliens had a short tour on their list with two games to be played, one against St Andrews Staff Cricket Club and the other in Kirkcaldy against the Dunnikier Cricket Club.

The line-ups of both teams were not those of the strongest ones with some key players missing on both sides. Thus, the St Andrews team came in with only 3 batsmen and 8 bowlers, missing the skipper Stan Frankland, opener Roy Dilley and all middle order batsmen. Scott Richardson took the captaincy and also - for the second time maybe - the role of a wicket-keeper in the absence of experienced Stu Robertson.

The Aliens won the toss and decided to field first. Arnab Bhattacharjee and Matt Clarke opened the innings with a steady performance building up a 50 runs partnership before Matt was caught off Damon Quicke's delivery for 20 shortly before drinks. Totally relaxed and fearless Hassan Syed came to the crease and smashed right the first ball for a six. Supported by Arnab's precise and conservative batting, Hassan went on adding runs very quickly and was very economical with his energy hitting either sixes or going for easy singles, no big running required. Arnab was eventually caught lbw as the first victim of extremely successful Aliens' bowler Navid. Scott Richardson continued to support Hassan but managed to score only one run before his attempt to hit the boundary off Navid's delivery was caught by R. Dennett at deep cover. Hassan was out for 44 with the very next ball, providing Navid with nice figures of 3-9. John Gilmore made some resistance to perfectly in line bowling opponents and scored 5 runs before being caught behind off L. Ritchie's delivery. The St Andrews' tail didn't wag for a long time. Alex Finlay and Ben Agate were both bowled for a duck off Navid's deliveries and Anil Jayasundera at no.9 contributed with 1 run before he was caught by Damon Quicke off Navid. Vit Matuska at no.10 didn't enjoy his batting debut as he was bowled for a duck after facing three balls only and became the last victim of Navid's bowling, bringing him to dream figures of 7-13. Ewan Cameron had a promising debut at No.8 and he scored 4 runs before falling as the last wicket of StAnd's innings and the only victim off Johannes Scholtz. St Andrews SCC set a low target of 122 runs.

Oslo Aliens' openers N. Kursheed and Bhairav Patel came to the crease thinking about a solid start and a steady progress to beat the low target. However, Bhairav had to leave after scoring only 2 runs when Ben Agate proved his bowling skills and took his first wicket in the third over of the innings. With Jamie Cameron coming to the crease, the runs were added up faster. Jamie and N. Kursheed built up a partnership of 30 runs before N. Kursheed smashed a shot off Ben Agate in the air and Alexis Smith took a great diving catch at long off. Ben's and John Gilmore's precise opening bowling produced two difficult chances for a catch but Matt Clarke, with great effort and stretched full length both times, didn't manage to work them up. Jamie Cameron consistently added more and more runs in cooperation with Johannes Scholtz who got injured after a fast yorker off Hassan Syed landed on his foot. Johannes, who had to use a runner, then fell for 6 to Vit Matuska's slower outswinging delivery which hit the space between the middle and off stump. Two overs later, Matt Clarke produced an excellent wicket-maiden and finished the "sweet going" of Jamie Cameron, who scored 36 runs. Jamie brought the ball in the air and Ben Agate took a good catch at second slip. And in the next over, Hassan Syed copied Matt's performance and removed Richard Dennett for a duck. The score was on 79 in the 23rd over of the innings, Aliens were 5 men down and a sparkle of hope arose for St Andrews team. Hassan then continued in his brilliant performance that day removing J. West for 9 in his next over. But Oslo Aliens are a very good and experienced team with great middle order batsmen. Their skipper, Will Dennett, supported by J. Reader then demonstrated a swift "finish-off" scoring together 26 runs off four overs, Will hitting five boundaries, the last of which finished in a great style the match.

Scott Richardson then gave a lift to injured Johannes Scholtz to the hospital and back to Whey Pat, where in the meantime the third innings were prepared by the "drink-umpire" Damon Quicke, who uncompromisingly kept ordering pints until the bus came to pick the visitors up. These innings, however, finished with a draw and a fantastic mood. It was one of the friendliest matches, played in a great spirit and we believe that Oslo Aliens had a good time here and also in Kirkcaldy and a good way back home.

Links: http://www.alienscricketclub.no
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~scricket