Holy Cross Ignite Despite Absence of Bonfire!

 The newish look Holy Cross first team was missing cup final hero Bonfield but secured a well deserved victory against a rusty looking Watsonians.  The writer (EC Smith) was making unusually good time, aided by his father's car, and arrived at arboretum a full five minutes before play commenced!  Big hitting opening batsman Owais Mazher followed ten minutes later having, ingeniously, arrived fully clothed in his whites in order to 'save time'!  Flawed logic or genius, I'll leave it up to you to decide!

This question aside, play commenced on schedule and the firsts appeared to have pulled off their customary psychological trick of appearing like a bunch of reprobates while still starting the game strongly.  GT, buoyed by his promotion to vice-captain in the absence of the injured Keith Fraser, took on the responsibility of 'pack-leader' and performed with gusto in the opening overs.  Veteran Flannigan looked in determined mood but, after shaping a couple away, GT had him shoudering arms to one that nipped back and the middle and off bail went flying!  Queue high fives and celebrations coupled with cautionary warnings that the gritty Fox was arriving at the crease, no doubt wishing to continue his good record against the Cross.

Fox nudged and nurdled, along with Yellowless , in relatively benign early season conditions and skipper Russell shrewdly resisted the temptation to over attack at this point.  After ten overs, GT and Raja made way for McCoscar and Ellis, as the Cross looked to stifle the opposition in what was a slightly hesitant looking 2nd wicket partnership.  The skipper's patience was rewarded in the fifteenth over when Ellis teased Fox down the wicket and Shifty took a smart stumping chance to spark further celebrations.  At around 35-2 Holy Cross were amongst the wickets and had also kept things tight resulting in a sense of anticipation as to how Watson's would respond. 

However, apart from a couple of enterprising strokes from new batsman Fleming, the visitors continued to creep along at a fairly slow rate.  It must be said though, that this was largely to do with the quality of the bowling, as McCoscar and Ellis bowled with real control and intelligence throughout this period.  As a result, this sense of anticipation had started to give way to a sense of inevitability, as The Cross secured their third wicket when McCoscar trapped Yellowless lbw.  Holy Cross then pushed home their advantage, with McOscar grabbing two further wickets, to leave the visitors in real trouble at 60-5 during drinks. 

Having taken his match total to three wickets, McCoscar looked to be tiring slightly as he made way for a Raja 'blast' after drinks.  Holy Cross's new 'tough man' repaid the skipper's faith in him as he got rid of the dangerous looking number 7, after inducing a leading edge.  Raja then turned on the style in his next over when a well disguised slower ball, which would have done for many a batsman, was edged to gully.  A slightly unnecessary run-out of Fleming later, who probably represented the visitors last hope of posting a competitive total, meant the visitors were lurching badly.

At around 80-8, the vice-captain then demonstrated an innate understanding of the privileges which can come with power, promptly 'finding' himself back in the attack.  No one was complaining of Machiavellian methods, however, as GT burst through the tail to leave Watson's with a substantially under par total of 83 off 34 overs.

After a tea notable for both its quantity and quality, The Cross then set about their total in earnest...  However, after a couple of sound shots through cover, McOscar nicked one off Leggett and departed early on for just 4 runs.  Only one more run than wicket for the kiwi but, for those who have witnessed him in pre-season nets, one suspects it is only a matter of time before he gets to grips with the Scottish wickets and puts runs on the board. 

This wicket brought CJ Ellis to the crease to join the ever ready Mazher and the scoreboard soon started to tick over at a comfortable rate.  Progress was relatively serene, although Watson's should have seen Mazher depart on around 25, when he was dropped after miscuing a trademark stroke over the wide mid-on region.  However, a huge 6 from Mazher and some fluent stroke-play from Ellis saw Holy Cross complete a surprisingly straightforward 9 wicket victory, with Mazher finishing on 44* and Ellis 30*.

There will be greater tests for the first team, including (no doubt) Watson's themselves later in the season, but this continued a good start for The Cross under the stewardship of Dougie.  

         
EC Smith;

Final over win for Keith's Codgers

Keith's Codgers
 199/ 3 (35 overs)

O. Mazher 50* (retired)
C. Ellis 52* (retired)
K. Fraser 38*
E. C. Smith 33

Raja: 8/1/33/1
G. Trewartha: 8/0/31/0
D. Russell: 6/0/58/0
J. Bates: 8/1/53/1
N. Webb: 5/0/19/0

Dougie's Dandies
191/ 8 (35 overs)
R. Javed 71
D. Russell 32
G. Trewartha 33

C. McGill 8/1/29/0
C. O. Smith: 8/0/44/2
C. Ellis: 8/0/47/5
E. Smith: 3/0/22/1
S. McCosker 8/0/35/0

Despite a wicket that looked decent but was a bit of a pudding and some
periods of cold weather, we managed a enjoyable inter-club match (I'll leave aside the abject standard of the tea bags bags we had to use: hopefully this will soon be rectified)  .
Everyone (bar Norrie) managed some valuable time in the middle and the bowlers got some overs under their belts. Good testing spells from Raja, GT & Simon, while Smudger and Coco did well to keep things tight against strong batting. Undoubtedly there was some friendly bowling on offer but some of the batting was impressive-Dougie getting some rough treatment from Owais and EC.
Raja got close to achieving the 25 needed of the last over...though cje may come under suspicion for his decision to bowl 'leg spin'.

Moment of the match:
 EC's dismissal of GT with a surprise (genuinely) good ball. No footage exists but EC insists that the dismissal at 3.17 in this video is a virtual replica.

Special mention: 2 stumpings for Smudger! Plus a 40 mins spell on the roller in heavy rain!

Coming soon...

Apparently the 1st XI skipper has been interviewed by the gentlemen of the Edinburgh sports press ... the 3 hr interview is bound to produce some interesting material...

It's likely to appear here over the next couple of days.

but before we see that...did this 'information' derive from the interview??

1sts 2nd in 1 in 11

Scores Digest.

1sts (at Arboretum)

Marchmont 131ao
M. Loeffen 60, S. McGregor 33.
Bonfield 6-2-9-1
Trewartha 9-3-34-4
Ellis 4-0-13-0
Lynch 10-2-27-1
Russell 10-0-30-1
Bainbridge 4.3-1-10-3

Holy Cross 135-1
C. Ellis 62*, O. Mazher 36, K. Fraser 34*
Loeffen 8-3-22-1

Report from the Marchmont website here.

This surprisingly convincing victory means that Holy Cross 1st XI finish 2nd in Division 1.
This equals their performance (in a differently structured East League: after the formation of the SNCL but before the Leagues and Grades were amalgamated) in 1997, when they finished 2nd to Cupar (and, as in 2011, just above Marchmont in third. Funnily enough Fauldhouse finished bottom of Div 1 that year!). Good stuff guys.

2nds

Div 5 - Largo 2nds vs Holy Cross 2nds at Largo.

Largo 126 all out - runs for Alex Anderson, 4 wickets for Colin Smith.

Holy Cross 127-6 - runs for Butt and Bates.

3rds

Division 8 on Inverleith Arti
Holy Cross Academicals 3rd XI 38 all out in 21.2 overs
(Kevin Casssidy 3-3, Craig Goold 3-6, James Crispin 2-17)

Stewart's Melville FP Royal High 3rd XI 42for 3 in 17.1 overs
(Umar Malik 14 in 11 balls: R Ellis 8-4-5-2)

Minotaur vs McEldrey

Crossers may be aware that the Australian selectors have been searching far and wide for prospective test cricketers and have been made aware of the our long term success of Shannon and more recently Pat. As a result they have demanded either their return or Cross provide an equal replacement.

A straw poll revealed one CA Smith to be our most "Australianesque" member and we have opted to ship him off for an initial two year tenure. He'll be working as a doctor to augment any potential lack of runs.

As a result CA is determined to end 16 years of hurt and finally overall his twin in the run scoring stakes. Rumours that his initial goal of outscoring The Prince (CJE) was quickly downgraded to out-scoring EC have been denied by his "people".

As it stands there is 1 league game and one cup final left

League runs:

EC Smith: 223
CA Smith: 165

Non League runs:

EC Smith: 83

CA Smith: 187

EC - 306

CA - 352

I'm unsure which carries more weight, league runs? Cup runs are still "first class" so do they all count?

Either way it's game on for the next two matches.......................SMITH OFF!!!!

1sts v Watsons 2's - Skipper Arrives Early For Next Seasons Match

Quick Quiz Question (answer at end of report):

Which letters are missing? A, B, D, F, G, J, K, L, N, O, P, Q, R, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.



The skipper at around 1pm on Saturday???

The first sign that things weren’t all they should be was when I received a text from Bainbridge at 12.57 saying “Starting, I won the toss”. Worrying. The skipper had asked me during the week if I could keep wicket, so I knew vice-skip Simon wasn’t playing, but where was The Skip?

One minute later, when I arrived, I discovered I was one of the lucky few to keep my place after the Parks Trophy victory three days earlier. Out went Pickering, Webb, Gaware & Lynch in a Romanov style cull. In were Morcom, Jones, Killey & Trewartha. Nick Jones, who I’d never met before, had his pads and gloves on ready to keep. So I assumed he was a Watsonian and thought we must be batting. That we only had 10 men and no match ball, batting would be the only sensible choice really. Until introductions were made and I realised my assumptions of normality were going to be tested to the max. Our 12^th game of the season and our 4^th keeper in the ongoing mass rotational experiment that we call Selection. And we were bowling.

Bimbo, now with a 100% record of winning tosses, immediately ceded control of proceedings to Frazerio. A dumb move. Any fool (or uncle Jo) knows that as soon as you get a sniff of power, you hang onto it and begin plotting the downfall (or preferably death) of any close rivals. If he’d held on to the mantle of power, he could have been opening the bowling for years to come. But as soon as I resumed the role, all the old insecurities of high office came flooding back. Immediately spotting the threat of Bainbridge to my acting position of command, I had to put him in his place (deepest fine leg and not opening the bowling).

With Lynch and Warsnap somewhere else and Bimbo in purdah (definition; the seclusion of women from the sight of men) on the boundary, I chucked our ‘borrowed’ ball (for we had none of our own) to Bonfire and asked Gary ThreeforFourforFiveforWartha (a name of Cornish origin apparently) to take the second over.

Papa Bonfield, suffering a bit from writers block struck with his very first ball (is that too obscure a cross-reference from last Saturday’s report?) enticing a snick that Jones happily snaffled and the Cross juggernaut was on the road again. Bonf proclaimed the virtues of the very short lived innings as, usually, the East League hackers aren’t good enough to nick his pearlers. About time somebody was good enough to do so!!!

Our favourite Watsonian now entered the fray and struggled against Trewartha, edging a couple through the burgeoning slip cordon before tickling one to your vice-vice-skipper at gully. Flannigan was next to go, tied down by Trewartha, he had a flail at one and missed, before losing his off stump next ball.

Er, still no skipper at this point. Brian ‘the one-armed bandit’ Fraser was in attendance in spectator mode and offered to do sub fielding duties. However this just reminded me of an old family story. My Grandad once told me, over a Werthers Original, that during the Second World War, one of his brothers was late back to his barracks after a period of leave. His CO had uttered the immortal words “I’d rather go into battle a man down than take Fraser”. The regiment then went off and were almost wiped out in one of those glorious futile gestures. So Brian was given a Coms role as we requested he found out where the F the skipper was. Difficult as he wasn’t answering his phone (/awake yet).

On the battlefield, the carnage continued. Yellowlees was next up. Looking good, he became ‘engaged’ in some ‘chat’ with a simmering Bainbridge (the ghost of the Bish alive and well?). When the Bimbo replaced Bonners, he thought long and hard about which of his arsenal of deliveries he’d deploy to dismiss his verbal nemesis. He decided on a hybrid of the half tracker and the long hop. A gleeful Yellowlees threw his bat at it, but could only chop it onto his timbers and off he went wondering if there were better ways to spend a Saturday.

The wireless operator reported at 1345 that contact had been made with the skipper and he sounded “groggy”. He was at his folks and would be going to Arbo to get his car and kit and should be half an hour.

Gary T scalped another in the meantime and the hosts were 41 for 5 against our charging one man Light Brigade.

After 3.5 overs of mediocrity I decided to relieve Bainbro of his toil, before he produced the first good ball of his spell to end his fourth over. Cue the first Hissy Fit of the day when I thanked him for his contribution. The tiara was thrown to the ground as he wailed something or other about just having found his rhythm. Dabbing his tears away I agreed to allow him to continue while Killey replaced Trewartha at the other end.

Sim & Boorman had now began a counter offensive. Defying the evidence of what went before, although the ball was quickly losing its shine in the drizzle, they continued to play shots when they could and kept the score ticking along at a healthy rate. Hissy Fit #2 arrived in the form of young Ellis. Asked to bowl at the Colinton Rd end, he was inconsolable. So Dougie offered himself up instead allowing Precious Prince Charles to get his way. I’m going soft in my old age.

Drinks came and went, but still no Dear Leader, until, in the 27^th over, our spirits were lifted. Out of the drizzle appeared that small red fanny magnet (the MR2, not Euan) and our cup winning skipper, like Marty McFly emerging from the DeLorean (Back To The Present???), arrived pitchside. In the 28^th over we were a team again.

Scrabbling around looking for a partnership breaker, I decided to ask Morcom to bowl an over, but first tried Gary T who still had two overs left. Three wickets later (figures of 6-39 for Trewartha), Morcom’s brief was truly defunct, though he still got one over as consolation anyway. Watsons had made a more than useful 92 for their 6^th wicket.

A further change recalling Russell and Bonfield was enough to take the final two wickets in 9 balls and Watsonians were all out for 145 in the 38^th over. Considering we had 10 men for most of it, a changed team, no office bearers and the quality of the opposition, I thought we did pretty well, although there was a murmur or two that we should have got them for less. If only I’d brought myself on 1^st change eh…

A mightily splendid, but disappointingly meagre Tea was then taken at Myreside where the increasing rain chased their 1^st XI off at Myreside just as we settled down to watch some ‘proper’ cricket being played.

And that was it.

In summation, another great performance by Gary T, averaging less than 7 with the ball and a strike rate under 12 in all 1^st XI games this year (it also transpired that Gary scored his "first" hundred against Watsons, not bad for our number 11). Shannon getting a batsman to nick a ball also deserves a second mention. Good efforts in tough conditions by the other bowlers too. And yet again in the field, it doesn’t seem to matter who is playing, our fielding was excellent once more, the only drops were two toughies behind the stumps by a useful looking stand-in keeper. The total lack of nets seems to be paying off spectacularly!!!!

S. Bonfield     6.3-2-16-2

G. Trewartha 10-1-39-6

Bainbridge     7-1-25-1

Killey             3-0-23-0

Russell           5-1-17-1

Ellis               6-0-17-0

Morcom         1-0-7-0

Quick Quiz Answer: E.C.S.M.I.T.H.

"It was one of those nights that just gets away from you and you can't bring it back"

Rain the only winner

Saturday scores digest.

1sts

Div 1 -At Craiglockhart.

Watsonian 2nds 145ao (38.3 overs)
A. Sim 54, T. Boorman 33

S. Bonfield 6.3/2/2/16
G. Trewartha 10/1/6/39
Bainbridge 7/1/1/25
Killey 3/0/0/23
Russell 5/1/1/17
Ellis 6/0/0/17
Morcom 1/0/0/7

match abandoned at Tea-persistent heavy rain.

2nds-at Arboretum

Murrayfield-Dafs 3rds 134ao
S. Tahir 24
C. Smith 3-30, N. Webb 4-20

3rds-at Double Hedges

Kirk Brae 2nds 199-9
G. Moss 49, T. Dodd 53, Tahir 26, A. Raja 25
A. Mohammed 4/36