Perth Doocot 3rd XI, 1st September 2013
University of St Andrews Staff 126/3 (27.5 overs) beat Perth Doocot 3rd XI 125/ao
(35.5 overs) by 7 wickets
(S. Frankland 69*, D. Bransden 35*) (D. Miller 3-22, P. Pass 2-19)
St Andrews rounded off their league campaign with a convincing victory away to
Perth Doocot to seal the coveted title of Strathmore and Perthshire Union
Division Two (South) Champions.
Dom won the toss and elected to field first, Alyn and Dave being given the
honour of sharing the new ball. With Alyn only giving away 1 run in his first
4 overs the opening batsman struggled to impose themselves. Eventually one
fell trying to cut a ball from Dave, Henry taking a good catch at 2nd slip.
Alyn then got due reward for a fine spell, Henry taking a sharp low chance
again at 2nd slip. Phil replaced Dave and took a wicket in his second over,
a drive on the up being superbly pouched by Patrick running to his left at
mid-off. With Alyn finishing his 8 over spell with figures of 1-9, the bowling
change again made a breakthrough, with Angus bowling Mearns with his second
legal delivery.
Both Phil and Angus were to take another wicket � Dave and Will both taking
good chances on the legside � and keep things tight to leave the score at 46-6
after 21 overs and it looked like Perth would struggle to reach 100. However,
the 7th wicket partnership began to up the tempo, with some aggressive shots
through the legside and some erratic, if ultimately successful running. Henry
made the important breakthrough after a partnership of 38 as D. Armstrong
chopped on looking for another big shot. The next wicket fell soon after as
Stan in his first over saw an outside edge safely pouched by Dom.
A flurry of lower order runs took the score up to 125 before Dave came back
to clean up the tail � clean-bowling Darshan for 49 and then pinning the
final batsman LBW to end with figures of 3 for 22.
The St Andrews reply got off badly as Alyn and Tom both fell early to leave
the score at 4 for 2. Henry got off the mark 1st ball with a glorious cover
drive, later followed up with a lofted drive for another boundary. Unfortunately
he fell the next ball for 11, edging behind trying for another boundary, to
leave us at 22-3 off 8 overs.
Dom and Stan set about steadying the innings without ever getting bogged down
� accumulating singles with good running and despatching anything loose. As
the change bowling came on Stan began to go on the attack with some crunching
shots through and over cover. With drinks taken only 47 more runs were needed
and it took less than 8 overs for Stan and Dom to get there, Stan completing
another 50 along the way to round off an excellent league campaign with the
bat. With 3 needed for victory Dom dispatched a full-toss to the boundary to
win the game in the 28th over - Stan finishing on 69 not out and Dom on 35
not out in a partnership of 104.
A fine way to end the campaign, with the catching in particular being a
noticeable improvement on recent games allowing the bowlers to gain reward
for excellent spells.
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