Edinburgh University vs Holy Cross at Peffermill (18/4/09).
Holy Cross 1st XI 153 ao
S. Pickering 27, N. Ali 25, E. Smith 18, R. Bainbridge 18*,
S. Bonfield 15, P. Kumar 11, Astley 10.
Hamilton 8 overs, 3/11
Ruswa 8 overs, 4/44
Pope, 8 overs, 0/25
Edinburgh University 118 ao.
F. Denku 53
Kumar, 8 overs, 3/27
Bonfield, 7.1 overs, 3/21
Bainbridge, 8 overs, 2/26
Astley, 8 overs, 1/23
Ellis, 7 overs, 0/15
In contrast to previous years, this game took place in temperatures comfortably above freezing (the final stages even being played out in warm sunshine). The early-season pitch made fluent strokeplay difficult: 153 was a good total - especially after we had been reduced to 98-7.
As the figures illustrate, a solid all-round display with contributions coming from throughout the side. Encouraging debuts from Nadeem and Praveen and a decent fielding effort given the rutted outfield. Admittedly the University side was a below strength one, but still contained some good cricketers (Denku's knock was a fine one).
Next Saturday the 1st XI hope to build on this victory with a fixture against Westquarter (away).
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We had a spy in the University camp as James Pope was playing for the students. Here's his version of events.
ReplyDelete"On a very cold afternoon at Peffermill a makeshift University first team let slip a chance to hand Holy Cross a bad start to the season. Despite having several opportunities to take the game by the scruff of the neck, the university side were unable to take advantage.
"Edinburgh University opted to bowl and Euan Smith saw no reason not to let them and opened up to some pacy opening bowling from the University, which had Holy Cross struggling. Calum Smith fell early and Charlie Ellis, wonderfully heckled by Uni come Cross player, James Pope, succumbed to a Golden Duck. With the Cross reeling the University needed to seize the imitative, however a brave innings from new captain Euan saw the University attack blunted. The change bowlers came on and bowled very tightly with James (8-2-25-0) and Hamilton (8-2-11-3) keeping the scoring low. However while wickets fell with the introduction of a left arm over spinner mixing up utter dross with some sublime deliveries, the run rate upped as the (rarely seen) strength in depth in batting saw the University unable to stem the flow of runs effectively and Holy Cross escaped from 100-6 on 30 overs to 153ao on 40 overs. These late runs came due to some useful contributions from Nadeem, Shannon, Ian Astley and Rob Bainbridge.
The tea was disappointing, largely due to poor organisation on the University front, but as the University innings got under way the start was solid albeit slow. As with the Cross innings, runs were slow at the beginning and Rob got in amongst the Uni players when the opener left a straight one that clipped the top of off stump. This brought Uni skipper, Fungi Denku to the crease and he was to play a solid innings, batting the next 34 overs before falling as the last wicket for 53. Once again, despite a few lost wickets the University was in a good position despite good bowling in the middle overs from Ian and Praveen the University were on course for victory with 20 overs to go and 96 runs needed. However, when James gave a plumb LBW the batsman was convinced he hit, the Uni began to collapse. This was largely due to the long tail running from 6-10 (the Uni had been rocked by losing the only other University cricketer in Edinburgh, Ben Duerden to food poisoning late in the week). The return of Shannon saw the Uni skittled very quickly with 10 runs coming from the 6-10 batsmen including (after his earlier comments) an embarrassing Golden Duck for James. In a post match interview, James swore it kept low, but replays suggested there might have been a ‘bus-wide’ gap between bat and pad. When Fungi fell for 53 as the last wicket the University were all out.
Holy Cross were very deserving for the win, putting in the hard yards when the game seemed to be against them both with the bat and the ball. The University will be left to rue not taking the chances that came their way and the absence of a large proportion of the club due to students getting increasingly lazy these days."
A whole new class of match reporting!
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