2nds Win Again

Falkland 150 for 7
(M Morris 56no, D Gray 42)

Drummond Trinity 94 all out
(B Strachan 3-5, C Hepburn 2-16, Sc Meikle 2-18)

Falkland 2nd XI Won by 56 Runs

The 2's traveled to Edinburgh for the second week on the trot and were once again up against one of our nemesis in Drummond Trinity. Like last week we thought we had left them behind in ESCA Division 4 but due to league reconstruction we were pitted against Jamal and his troops once again.

Wayne completed the pre-match rituals and lost the toss again. Not surprisingly we were asked to bat on a very soft, just cut and rolled wicket. The outfield could be described as.... shocking. Long grass, at a guess I would say uncut for 2-3 weeks,bumpy and of course wet. Boundaries were going to be at a premium.

Myself and Wayne opened the batting. Wayne continued his recent batting form and snicked one early doors to the keeper for the 2nd week on the trot. I was then joined by Geordie. We struggled to put runs on the board and were hampered drastically by the outfield, after 19 overs we were 33/1 and not one boundary had been hit. When Geordie departed in the same fashion as Wayne we were in a spot of bother at 37/2.
Enter Davie Gray. Davie took about 3 overs to get his eye in and then made myself and Geordie look a it silly. He smashed a quickfire 42 in 10 overs. He hit 4 lovely straight sixes and 2 fours.
It was much needed and you could see the Drummond players heads drop. Davie departed bowled by the opposition skipper when we were on 94/2.
Like myself everyone who came into bat struggled with the slow pace of the wicket and the slow bowling. We managed to pick up another 56 runs before the end of our allocated overs and we finished on 150/7.
I carried my bat through the whole of our innings finishing up with 56 not out, with only one 4 in the innings. It was not a pretty half century and I should have pushed on. However it was critical that some one anchored the innings so that we gave our bowlers something to bowl at. I did try to up the run rate for the last 8 overs but was a) to knackered b) not good enough and c) a tad hampered by the appalling outfield. So I had to settle for no fireworks.
I also believe it is the first time I have seen more 6's hit than 4's in an innings (4 x 6's, 3 x 4's).

Into the 2nd innings and Wayne had laid his plan out to us. Dismiss one of the openers early, target Nagi get him out then they will crumble. Plan sounded decent...

The early wicket did not materialize as the openers were happy to try and Block Big Ben making no attempt to score runs.
A quick change of bowler saw Craigie come onto bowl. He got the breakthrough in the 14th over. This brought Nagi to the crease. We brought Big Ben back on. Nagi got nowhere him. He was dropped by Derek at point. However it was obvious he was toiling with Ben's pace and another chance would come our way soon. And this is exactly what happened in Ben's next over.A forward defence popped up and Geordie was there at short cover to take a simple catch.
So we were into the tail and although Jamal put up some resistance with a quick fire 24, once he was given out LBW off the bowling of Derek the opposition crumbled.
Drummond were all out 94. Big Ben bowled really well and was to0 fast(even on this deck) for the opposition. He finished up with 3 wickets for 5 runs off 6 overs. He also had an LBW shout turned down for what would have been his hat-trick. It looked pretty plum but the umpire said no only to apologize to Ben 2-3 overs later as he said he should have given it!!!! Craig, Wayne and Scott chipped in with 2 wickets a piece and Derek got the important wicket of Jamal.

A good all round performance from the 2's today. A bit more application required in the batting but our bowling and fielding performance's have been of a good level in the last 2 week's. Lets keep this up and make it 3 from 3 when we have our first home game of the season next week.

Well Done Lads

Mike