It's That Time Of Year Again..

Another snapshot from Portobello

...when I return to a familiar theme and repeat the same old same old.

I've blustered fruitlessly in the past about a dislike of playing our noble game in sub-zero temperatures during April whilst reaching for the BBQ sauce after the last game of the season and soaking up some rays.

Some well meaning souls mutter mitigatingly about seed germination prior to dropping temperatures or of having to share pitches with other sports teams.

But I shall not listen to reason for no man!!! I have a bee in my bunnet and in my bunnet the bee shall stay!!! I feel so strongly about this issue I've never once attended a meeting with it in mind, let alone raised it at a meeting I've not attended.

I don't think we'd have actually managed a game this September as there was a lot of rain about at times that would have put Saturday matches in doubt (good for the fishing though, I've been howking them out good style).

However, we've just enjoyed/endured our hottest September since the thermometer was invented inspiring headlines such as;

'Its Too Hot'
'Why Is It So Hot'
'When Will It Stop Being So Hot'
&
'Coldest October 1st Since Records Began'

Britain-bakes-hottest-October-day-100-YEARS

I have to apologise that this post has been delayed, but it took me a while to decide on a photo from the range available. I'll start reviewing photo candidates for next years rehashed article this afternoon.

Those past 'articles'.
2010
2009

Another Twenty: 20 Twatting

Aug 3rd at Arbo. 20 overs per side -Friendly match.
Scottish Widows 165/3 (E. Robertson 69*, R. Hannah 45, A Greigson 23).
Holy Cross 122/4 (A. Quinn 40*)

The disdain felt for this vulgar form of the game by HX players was evident in a poor performance against Scottish Widows*. The Widows' batsmen played well but were assisted by some inaccurate bowling and f***ing awful sloppy fielding. Their 165 was well over par given a fairly dead used strip.

A promising HX reply was ended in the 7th over when both openers - Nipun (unluckily) and cje (to a stupid shot)- fell to their leggie. His was not the only embarrassing dismissal-Bainbro and Vikram falling to to Scott Miller's gentle lobs. An acceptable score was attained through a good 40* from Andy Q and 20 odd from Andy K.

*Given this it was good to see that two members (EC Smith and S. Pickering) of the President's commission examining our approach to Twenty:20 cricket were in attendance-and taking copious notes.

Cross Fisted by Arrows

The 1st XI turned up at Grange Loan unsure whether the weather would allow any cricket to be played, as it turns out the rain only rained on the Cross parade as Carlton ran out comfortable winners.

After a brief rain delay Carlton batted first and wickets proved hard to come by for the Cross bowlers with the Morningside men getting of to a steady start. Things might (might) have been different if a couple of very difficult chances off the opener Lockie (to be fair Spickers did well to get a glove to one chance and the other was a cover drive crashed at KF at sillyish mid, who did well not get injured) had stuck. They didn't however and Lockie proved the anchor of the innings putting together a creditable and composed 106.

Things never got out of hand though with some tight bowling from Andy K, Vikram, Charlie, yours truly and Praveen who narrowly missed out on a hat trick. At about 45 overs HX were looking at chasing a total of circa 225/230 which would have been acceptable, however some serious tap from the remaining Carlton batsmen, (Bhopal in particular putting the ball out of the ground on several occasions) meant they finished with a total of 255.

With our batting looking slightly weak this was always going to be a bit of an ask however when Habib who produced an excellent, pacey 10 over spell, ripped through our top 5 for very few on the board we were done for. Some resistance was offered by captain Pickering and a good knock from Praveen both scoring 27, however Habib was backed up well by the other Carlton bowlers especially Walker and we were scuttled for a disappointing 87.

Despite a poor week for availability no excuses should be offered, in truth Lockie's knock and the best spell of bowling I've seen in a good while from Habib won the game for Carlton. On this performance one wonders how Carlton aren't higher up the league and I look forward to seeing us demonstrate bouncebackability away to Grange next Saturday.

Fantasy Cricket

No!! Not that, you mucky minded Crosser!

During the winter Andy Graham has been hard at work putting a fantasy league together!

You pick your select XI from throughout the 3 teams and accumulate points during the season. The manager with the most points at the end of the 
season will receive a cash prize! The prize money will be determined by the amount of people that sign up. There will also be a small prize 
for the most valuable player!

All rules regarding the selection (how many bowlers, batsmen and all rounders etc) of your team are explained on the website.

We have decided that the cost will be £5 per team entered (You are allowed to enter more than 1 team!) to be paid to either Bainbro, 
myself, Euan, Ziggy or Ken.

The website you have to go onto is www.fantastar.com you have to register yourself and select the 'join a league' button. The league 
password is 000700HolyCrff7d41.

Participants have to enter their teams into the fantasy league the night before the 1st games of the season or your team will lose out 
on points from the set first matches.