The Holy Cross 1st XI started their season with an away trip to Freuchie on the 25th April, with a number of new faces and the usual availability issues.
After the overnight rain and an early pitch inspection, the start of play was delayed until 2pm and under the new rules a 35 over match was agreed.
Upon winning the toss, I decided to put them in to bat. We immediately set out to do our best to help Freuchie off to a good start, with a sitter of a catch getting dropped 4th ball of Bonners, when Khaili had yet to get off the mark.
The very next over another dropped catch, equally as easy, however 2-dogs had overstepped in his delivery stride, so it wouldn't have mattered.
Bonfield and 2-dogs (once he found his rhythm) both bowled well, but just couldn't quite make the vital breakthrough, although Bonners as usual went close on several occasions.
One of the new men Parvez, a very handy left arm spinner, was introduced and kept the run rate low.
In his 3rd over he picked up his first wicket for the Cross, trapping Khaili LBW for 14, with the score now 52-1. He finished with excellent figures of 1-14 of 7 overs and should have had R. Birrell caught when the Freuchie opener was only on 38. However another sitter of a catch was shelled at mid-on and he would go on to carry his bat through the innings and end on 100*.
Attiq Ul Hamid, another new face and spinner, bowled extremely well and also picked up his first wicket for the Cross ending with 1-37 off a fine spell. Bacon also chipped in with 6 overs, 1-28. His wicket coming with the only catch of the day for Holy Cross.
By my count we dropped 4 easy catches and one very difficult half chance, as well as the catch off 2-dogs no-ball. Credit must also go to Tom, who put in an excellent shift with the keeping gloves on.
Freuchie ending their 35 overs on 160-3, with Birrell batting very well and making the most of his 2 chances!
One of the comedy moments of the innings was seeing Marshie get carted over mid-wicket for a gigantic 6 that cleared the 8 foot fence behind the boundary, by a good 6-8 feet, only to see the umpire signal 4 runs. To which he admitted, I called it 4 as I couldn't see if it cleared the fence or bounced over.......
In all honesty, if we held our catches, I'm sure they probably would have struggled to post much more than 100 on what was a very good batting wicket. But we didn't, yet I still felt 161 was a gettable target, even though our batting line up was missing the likes of Owais, Jimmy, Charlie and Julius.
In reply, we set off at a reasonable pace, with myself and Raja opening the innings. Raja seemed in a hurry to get thing over and done with, playing pretty much a shot a ball. With 5 overs gone we were on 26, Raja played another big shot and miss-timed one to Jock the Freuchie Skip - I think he said that was the 3rd time out of 4 games he's caught Raja!
2 overs later I was out lbw.
Dougie and Attiq then added 20 for the 3rd wicket partnership, before in his own words Dougie 'just missed a full toss on middle stump, sorry Skip' - the Cross in more trouble at 47-3.
Tom then added to his collection of ducks, he's confirmed his status as odds on favourite to go back to back in winning the quack, quack oops award. Out lbw.
Unfortunately our next 3 wickets fell quickly and at regular intervals, with 2 of the 3 batsmen hitting bad balls straight down a fielders throat leaving us reeling at 70-7.
Up stepped Marshie with a promotion from his usual jack, in at 9. I'd have to say he scored the best duck of the day! He looked solid in defence against their leggie, then trotted down the wicket and played a glorious on-drive absolutely smashing the cover off the ball. Unfortunately their opening bowler at deep mid-on sprinted a good 5-10 yards to his left, started a dive throwing out his hands, juggling the ball and then rolling several times on the ground. A fine example of how to catch a ball!
Elmondt nudged a few around before getting clean bowled by what I suspect was a wrong-un, bringing in our final man Mr Worsnop with the score at 80-9 in only about the 23rd over.
Robin and Shannon batted very well, hitting the bad balls and keeping out the good. They soon started ticking over the runs and pushed the score up past 100, at one point needing slightly less than 1 a ball to take us to victory.
However there was just too much left for these 2 seasoned campaigners to do, with the re-introduction of the opening bowlers, the run rate dried up. Robin ended with the top score of the day for Holy Cross on 17* and the final pair adding an impressive 31 runs! Holy Cross all out for 111 off 32.5 overs. Robin out lbw.
However Shannon and Robin did ensure that we collected what later in the season could be 2 vital extra bonus points.
All in all, a day that could and probably should have told a very different story, had we taken the 3 easy chances we were offered within the first 5-6 overs.
Catching practice at nets on Tuesday is compulsory for any 1st XI members in attendance!!!
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