3rds Well Beaten by Accies

Edinburgh Accies 2nd XI 229 all out
(S Robertson 5-47, G Langlands 2-31)

Falkland 3rd XI 91 all out
(A Anson 35)

Falkland Lost by 138 Runs.

The 3rd XI hosted Edinburgh Accies this weekend, a team we had a couple of good battles, and even better arguments with, last season. We were slightly weakened on the bowling side, but we were confident in our batting - how wrong was I. Ed Milliband had more luck predicting how many seats in parliament he would win last week.

The outfield was a touch wet as the previous night the isobars had been close together and there was a down draft coming from the North East or as the say in Scotland it had been p*****g down.

The toss had taken place at the wicket this week, not because I felt adventurous, but as their captain had came to find me whilst I was erecting the stumps. The aforementioned toss was lost by the visiting captain, yes that's what I'm calling it. Whether it makes much difference now I don't know. Anyway I invited them to have a bat.

The bowling was opened by Grant 'the wee man' Langlands and Kieran ' I'm a batsman now' Westland. Kieran took the first wicket in his opening over as the batsman tried the pull shot, but would have had more luck trying to pull Michelle Keegan as it was the tunnel ball. It looped into the air and into the safe hands of Liam 'Habib' Farrell. Their captain and danger men was next to go in Grants second over as he underestimated the wee man's age and ability to swing the ball. His shot went in the air and was a great caught and bowled from Grant as he spun and took it coming over his left shoulder. His screams of " yes I've caught it" brought cheers from his 10 team mates.
The next wicket was a long time coming. The bowlers had changed as I came on bowling spin, yes you read it right. Alan ' the overseas amateur' had taken the gloves. Ash ' I drive a mini bus now' Anson had taken over at the other end. I finished with 0 for 18 from 7 and Ash 0 for 50 from 8, but both of us had failed to take any wickets.

Father and son duo of Scott 'I work at St Andrews Uni' Robertson and Lyle 'I'm just good at all sports' Robertson were brought into the attack. The change worked as Lyle took a wicket with his first ball courtesy of a catch on the boundary from Ash. His foot was inside of the faded white line, but it's a good job the ruling didn't include his belly which was well over.

We were into the 24th over before the next wicket came. It was also Scott's first of 4 wickets in 3 overs as he bowled their No 5 - an excellent catch in the slips by Simon 'the sick note' Phillips, a catch by myself and an LBW. Scott was on for a 5-for. We could almost taste the jug.

We had them 169 for 7 when Grant was brought in from the cold and soon took No 8 with another catch from myself. Now I thought this was the catch of the season as I landed on my metal bits and almost bounced over the boundary only to be informed by Mr Wilkie that he would have struggled to squeeze 3 pages of the Sunday Post under me as I rose for the ball, fire totally extinguished. Grant finished with a deserved 2 for 31 from 9.

Scott's fifth wicket came and the jug was ordered - well I think it was, but the barman must have ignored him as we are still waiting on it. A leg before to finish saw Scott with excellent figures of 5 for 47 from 9 - a great display.

We had them 176 for 9 so how the hell they got to 229 all out beats me. It took the introduction of Davie 'Usain Bolt' Chambers to change things and take their No 10, the look of fear in the batsman's eyes as Davie charged in told the story as he must have thought I'm not hanging around here and popped the ball in Habib's hands off the first ball. Davie had figures of 1 for 0 from 0.1 and Kieran ended up with a respectable 1 for 35 from 4. He would have bowled more, but ended up on the ever growing injury list. Tea was taken.

You may have noticed I spent a lot of time deciphering our bowling and fielding, which I was impressed with - a great improvement on last week's disaster. Well, not much to say about our batting,. We have 2 of our excellent under 13 players in the 3rd XI and they must have felt right at home as we batted like an under 13 team. We are thinking about organising a friendly with Auchinshoogle U10 to see if we can boost our confidence with a win. In the last 2 games our top 7 batsmen have amassed a grand total of 47 runs, in both games. No. 8 has been top scorer, along with extras, very poor. We ended up 91 all out.

I know our team and I know they are fighters. It has been proved in the last couple of seasons. We will hit form again soon. Let's hope it's this Saturday down at Prestonpans.

Mel Low