5 Wins On The Bounce For 2's

The 2's made the short trip to Largo on Saturday with rain being more likely than sunshine. With this in mind skipper Mike Watson and the Largo captain decided to reduce the overs to 40 to help get a completed match in. The rain threatened for the majority of the day but thankfully it never appeared.

Mike lost the toss AGAIN and we were asked to make use of the wicket first. Tam and Scuba opened up and Scuba was gone in the 1st over. He nicked a nice away swinger and had to walk. Not the ideal start. Things got worse for us as Tam attempted play a legside glance when walking up the track, only for his leg stump to be removed. 5 overs in and we were 20/2. There opening bowler was bowling some nice in swingers and it required our batsman to be watchful and do nothing rash. This never occured as both Cameron and Callum Bell were clean bowled by the same bowler who accounted for Tam and Scuba. Both players also left there row in the scorebook empty. We were now teetring on 21/4.
Some experience was needed and a decent partnership had to be formed if we were going to get out of the mess we were in. Robbie and myself attempted to do this but the partnership ended when Robbie was run out. 45/5. Disaster Loomed!
Enter Craig Hepburn.... Craigie and I decided that we needed to be out in the middle until at least 30 overs. This is what we done and in doing so we were able to build a partnership of 75 before Craigie was eventuslly bowled in the 31st over. He had scored a quick fire 44 runs which included four 4's and one 6. The score had now moved onto a more respectable 120/6. I tried to push the score along but was only managing to pick up ones and two's. Some lusty blows from Grant and the skipper helped us reach 172/8 at the end of our 40 overs. Not a bad total considering we were 21/4 after 7 overs. I ended up with 58 not out, it probably should have been more as my timimg was out a bit. The fact that I only hit 2 boundaries in my 58 reflect this.

Into the 2nd Innings and Grant and Mike W opened up. Both bowled steady and the Largo batsmen found runs hard to come by. Mike got the break through with his final ball of his spell, trapping the opener, LBW. After the bowling changes we started to see the Largo wickets fall. Scott Meikle (the batsman of the Meikle family) taking 3 of them and Dale also got one. It was Largo's turn to toil at 47/5. Largo were unable to build a partnership that put our total in danger and when Cragie came on to bowl he managed to mop up the tail enders and Largo ended up all out for 107.
Excellent all round performance from man of the match Craig, following up his 44 with bowling figures of 4/14 in his 5.4 overs.

It was also pleasing to note that our fielding seems to be coming along. We held onto all but one of our catches (Dale!!) and the ground feilding was tidy throughout(apart from Callums sliding tackle to stop the ball in cover). Tam behind the stumps also deserves a mention following up his excellent performsnce last week with another excellent performance. Lets keep this going and continue to improve it throughout the season.

Although in the end this was a convincing win, we need to start treasuring our wickets better when batting. We will face stiffer opposition and it is vital that our batters go out with the correct mentality to avoid being in positions like we were on Saturday. 21/4 and 45/5 with our top order is not good enough. We have a double header against Drummond coming up and I feel these two games will determine how our season is going to go.

Lets keep up the winning momentum and take our winning streak to 6 this Saturday.

Cheers
Mike