St Andrews University 3rd XI, 27th April 2013
University of St Andrews Men's 3rd XI 192/ao (39.5 overs) beat University
of St Andrews Staff XI 183/8 (40 overs) by 9 runs
(A. Davies 64) (A. Davies 2-19, A. Stewart 2-29)
A sunny Saturday afternoon on C2 (thanks to a firework display being
set up on C1) saw St Andrews Staff kick off the season with the now
traditional curtain-raiser against a team made up of 2nd and 3rd XI
players from the student ranks. Three players were making their debut
for the Staff with Akash, Bharti and Farhad all showing promise for
the season ahead and also learning some valuable lessons about tricky
Scottish pitches!
Expert tosser Captain Angus continued his record of having won the
toss in every game he has taken charge and opted to field first. Phil
& Alyn took the new ball honours producing some controlled bowling to
restrict the student openers. Phil did try to intimidate the opening
bat with pace and Harmison-esque hostility (in his West Indies tour
prime), but only succeeded in producing the Harmison-esque results of
the 2006/7 Ashes series, with the ball looping slowly off the damp
and fragile wicket and leaving an indentation closer to his own feet
than the batsman. However, come the end of the innings this was only
the third shortest ball bowled by our team.....
Some early rustiness in the field showed throughout the game with a
number of misfields and some dropped catches (including two in two
balls off the bowling of the unlucky Dave), but everyone was kept
in the game by the (mostly) suicidal running/(lack of) calling by
the opener, Sohil. Alyn took two wickets in his fine spell of
7-2-19-2, the first courtesy of a good catch by Captain Angus on the
straight drive (the first of his three catches), and the other clean
bowled. The first of two run outs for James (including one direct hit)
and a controlled opening spell for the team from Bharti of 3 overs for
just 1 run (including from a double-bouncing wide ball that the
batsman toe-ended into the ground!) saw the student team on just 54-3
after half of their allotted overs. Angus and Akash then took over and
following the second run out, Akash took his first wicket for the club
courtesy of a great catch from Angus. Phil returned to take the wicket
of the number 7, excellently caught by Alyn who had donned the keeping
gloves and then Angus removed the numbers 8 and 9 in consecutive balls.
Sohil, seeing that he was running out (of) his partners decided it was
time to try and cut loose and hit four big sixes to the short leg side
boundary (including three in a row) off the bowling of Stan, reaching
his century from 112 balls. Two balls later Dave finally removed him
for 101 to wrap up the innings on 192 leaving Ben unbeaten on 15.
After a gratefully received tea, the staff batsmen took to the field,
Dave and Alyn opening up confidently and quickly taking the score to
35 before Dave mistimed a pull shot straight up in the air for Sohil
to complete the catch. Tom played an immaculate forward defensive to
his first ball only to pop a return catch to the bowler from his
second. Akash and Alyn steadied things again, taking the score up to
68 (thanks in part to a large contribution from 'extras' and some
legside bowling well dispatched by Alyn) until Akash became the first
of O'Boyle's three wickets. Paul joined Alyn and put on 67 for the
fourth wicket, both batsmen looking increasingly assured and bringing
up the team century in the 21st over. Unfortunately at this point, the
opposition bowling tightened up, despite Alyn reaching his first 50
for the club, just 25 runs came off the next ten overs, putting a bit
of pressure back onto the batsmen.
Just as things were looking up again for the Staff, Paul fell, run out
for a fine 24 trying to up the run rate - soon to be followed by Alyn
also run out for an excellent 64. Farhad made it three run outs in a
row shortly after. James swatted a lovely looking boundary but he and
Bharti both perished to the returning O'Boyle leaving Stan at the other
end to try and keep the staff in the game. With 30 needed off 3 overs,
Stan took 15 of them in one over, but ultimately it was just a little
bit too late as the staff finished just 9 runs short of victory on 182-8.
A great game played in a good spirit (and unusually good weather!) and
hopefully a good workout before the league season kicks off.
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