Match Report - Falkland, 7th May 2008

An almost narrow defeat against Falkland in the first 20:20 of the season, with Falkland: 179 for 4 and St Andrews: 82 for 9.

Falkland won the toss and elected to bat. Their overseas pro opened and together with his partner, helped by a very short boundary, they quickly made a 100 partnership, despite some tidy bowling. Inspired captaincy from David to bring on McBaggers, whose beamer to finish his excellent first over was enough to convince both batsmen to retire. With the new pair in and continued pressure from Baggers and an excellent maiden over from Alex the run rate decreased significantly. A Houdini catch by Patrick on the rope at long on gave Mike the first wicket. Soon afterwards, Patrick, annoyed by the insolence of a batsman attempting to hit him back over his head sent the middle stump flying, to finish with figures of 22 for 1 from 4 overs. The bowling was backed up with some good fielding by Patrick (demonstrating the lesser known throat barrier) and Roy with some tidy glove work by Stu.

Mike and Stuart continued their excellent work in opening the batting, particularly with some very accomplished running between the wickets, which many of us could do with copying (with Ivan, Alex and Lewis all run out). Strong bowling from Falkland left both openers bowled, Mike for 11 and Stu for 10. David finished top scorer on 24 with a solid middle order performance, backed up by Ivan and Alex. With the tail strongly wagging Baggers launched a ball through the pro for 4 to further increase his batting average over me and a typical Patrick innings ensued with the ball repeatedly racing back over the bowlers head. After pressure from Patrick to backup at the non-strikers end David H decided the best policy was to have a brief lie down before nonchalantly making the single.

- Nicholas Owen