Perth Doo'cot 3rd XI, 13th May 2012

University of St Andrews Staff (71 for 1) beat Perth Doocot 3rd XI (69 all out) by 9 wickets
(T. Roy 29*)(U. Pathania 3-15)

On another cold, dank, windy, miserable summer's day our League season continued with a comprehensive victory over the 'newco' Club amalgamated from the three existing Perth-based outfits. Following a certain amount of changing room confusion due to the Uni team having a game on C2, Dom lost the toss but was delighted to be asked to field, despite Tom's plaintive request to bat on a soft, lush and very green track. Superb opening spells by Angus and Dave (9-1-12-0 and 7-2-7-2, respectively) kept the Perth scoring rate to a crawl and a much improved fielding performance saw Henry, Angus and especially Abdul take good catches to reduce our opponents to 30/5 in the 19th over. Uday's first over had produced 2 wickets and Patrick chipped in by bowling the no. 4 batsmen who had previous been hit on the head - not by a vicious bouncer but rather by Trideep failing by some distance to throw down the stumps! The innings ground on for a further 20 overs with obdurate batting from their no. 3 shepherding the tail before they finally succumbed to neat run outs by Angus and Tom as well as a wicket for Stan and a maiden wicket for Henry who bowled neatly in his first spell for the Club.

With drizzle in the air and the wind strengthening to '30 somethings per hour' according to Stan, Dave and Trideep continued their fine opening form this season, a 3rd 50 partnership ensuring there would be no hiccups in the brief run chase. Dave managed to clip one straight to square leg to be dismissed with the finishing line in sight but Tom came in to boost his strike rate by scoring the 8 runs required from 3 balls faced.

A solid victory based on a good bowling and fielding performance which bodes well for the rest of the year.

- Dominic Bransden