Freuchie XI, 31^st July, 2011

St Andrews University Staff 177-4 (36 overs) beat Freuchie 176-8 (40 overs) by 6 wickets
(A.Anderson 65*, U.Pathania 38*) (A. Stewart 4-25, S. Frankland 3-44)

St Andrews bounced back from Wednesday's Ferrier Cup debacle with an excellent victory away at Freuchie. After winning the toss again, Dominic reverted to the usual pattern of bowling first.

On a decent pitch, with a quick outfield, a high score looked probable, and the Freuchie openers started off well without ever seeming to hit top gear. St Andrews spurned the two chances given by the openers as the catching behind the wicket seemed to have been affected by previous night's excesses, Angus and Dave being the unfortunate bowers, Dom and Stan the culprits.

After these drops the partnership reached 111 in the 22nd over, whereupon Stan came on to bowl. After being hit for 10 runs off the first 5 balls, revenge was his as he got one to spin back and clean bowl the dangerous Wright. Soon after he repeated the feat to remove the other opener after passing 50. Freuchie then tried to consolidate as Uday and Stan dried up the runscoring, and at 30 overs had reached 138 for 2, whereupon Angus was brought back into the attack the bowl the remaining 3 overs of his allocation. There followed a flurry of wickets as Freuchie collapsed to 146 for 7. Angus clean bowling 2 batsmen, and causing 2 others to give catches, well taken by Jack and Stuart. In between this Broadesque spell 4 for 4 in 18 balls, Stan chipped in with his 3rd wicket.

Some big hitting from Wallace, including 14 off Stan's last over, lifted the score to 176, although we finished well with only 3 runs and a run-out coming off a tight last over from Pat.

After the confusion of being asked whether we wanted the heavy or light roller in the innings break, the St Andrews reply got off to a shaky start, Dom top-edging a pull shot, and Dave being clean bowled, to leave us at 13 for 2. However, with Stuart holding up an end admirably, Tom was able to showcase his shot making abilities, with some excellent drives and a swept 6 motoring the score along. Disappointingly, Stuart was then run out and Tom perished aiming another drive in the same over having contributed an excellent 35, leaving us 57 for 4 after 16 overs, still a long way short of the victory target.

Alex and Uday then proceeded to take the attack to the Freuchie bowlers with some wonderful strokeplay, and some excellent urgent running. With Uday playing an intelligent innings of rare restraint, he was content to turn the strike over to Alex who exhibited a wide range of attacking strokes including a straight 6 over the wall at the end of the ground. With the required run rate dropping all the time, it was with 4 overs left that Uday hit the winning single to finish on 38 not out and complete the victory. At the other end Alex finished on 65 not out, with 42 runs coming from boundaries. Together they put on a partnership of 120 in 20.1 overs to propel us towards an impresive victory and keep our proud unbeaten League record going for another week.

- Dominic Bransden