Guthrie Park CC, 24^th July, 2011

St Andrews University Staff 175-8 (40 overs) beat Guthrie Park 97 a/o (30.2 overs) by 78 runs
(S. Frankland 41, U. Pathania 36, D. Miller 30) (U. Pathania 3-8, P. Jess 3-9)

St Andrews eased to another convincing victory on a sunny Sunday in Brechin.

After the customary loss of the toss, Dom and Dave opened with a fine partnership of 47 in 16 overs, despite only 6 runs being scored in the first 7 overs. Dom was first to fall, bowled for 21, and Dave went soon afterwards for an excellent 30, including a stupendous straight 6 that landed 20 yards beyond the boundary. Stan and Tom upped the scoring rate further, before Tom was bowled off the last ball of the 30th over - leaving us at 106 for 3 with 10 overs remaining. Another solid partnership between Stan and Uday ended with the score on 136, Stan becoming another of the 10 batsmen who were to be clean bowled in the match. Uday then began to play some excellent aggressive cricket, hitting 36 off just 23 balls, with James providing a valuable partner at the other end in a partnership of 32. Despite losing 3 wickets at the end in search of quick runs, we were able to post 69 in the last 10 overs to dispirit the opposition and leave a tough chase of 176.

With Phil opening up with consecutive maidens, Angus reaped the early rewards to leave Guthrie Park at 10-2 in the 6th over, Dominic taking a low chance at 1st slip, and Stan catching one at point. The Guthrie Park no. 4 then upped the run rate considerably, pulling anything short away to the boundary as the 50 came up in the 13th over. However, in the same over Dave induced the no. 4 into an expansive stroke outside off stump, Dominic safely pouching the resulting steepling catch.

There followed a drop in our the performance as we once again gave away too many extras to help the opposition consolidate and progress the score to 70 for 3. However, the introduction of Uday provided swift dividend as he got one to keep low and take out the stumps for our 4th wicket. Dave added his 2nd wicket without any further score with a smart catch from James, and the rest if the batting order crumbled against tight bowling from Uday and Pat. Displaying the virtues of bowling full and straight, Uday took 3 for 8, all bowled, whilst Pat took 3 wickets in 4 balls to finish with 3 for 9, Paul safely taking the catch behind the wicket to finish things off.

- Dominic Bransden