On Cue

Stephen Hendry announced his retirement last night. Hendry is apparently going to spend much of his time promoting pool in China.

If they want to grow the game, they need players with the right wholesome image to appeal to China's growing aspirational middle class.

Hendry is apparently considering using the young man featured in this video here

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!

Parks Progress

Parks Trophy 2nd Round (at Arboretum)

Holy Cross 179-3
C. Ellis 58* (25balls), C. A. Smith 42 (32), S. Bonfield 41* (24), E. C. Smith 22 (25)

Casuals 113/9
Logan 29, Crow 18
Worsnop 3 overs/2-4
Bainbridge 3 overs/ 0-11
Millington 3 overs/ 1-21
Russell 3 overs/ 3-17
U. Shazad 4 overs/ 2-33
Webb 2 overs/ 0-17
Bonfield 2 overs/ 1-7

The efforts made in getting out a strong side were rewarded with a good solid win in a highly enjoyable game versus a spirited Casuals side. Efficient dispatching of the bad/ hittable deliveries took us to a good 179-3 on a decent but slightly 'dead' track. Though we shared the bowling around, the very tight opening spells by the two Rob's (14 off the first 6 overs) meant that the HX total was never under threat. Cheers to Casuals for playing the game in a great spirit (even when the ball was disappearing to the boundary fairly regularly)-and also well done for batting so well in the final overs when the light was pretty terrible.

breaking news.... PVB informs me that.....we will play Edinburgh South (at Arbo) in the next round.