1's go down to Edinburgh Accies

Holy Cross v Edinburgh Accies, penned by stand in Skip GT!

Played at Arboretum on 13/7/2013

Edinburgh Accies (20) beat Holy Cross (7) by 2 wkts

The players arrived at Arbo in glorious July sunshine with the track looking hard, but dry, and the outfield cut short and of a minimalist size.  It seemed scoring runs was not going to be an issue today….. Skipper-for-the-day GT accompanied his opposite man to the middle hoping to lose the toss to avoid having to make a decision.  Much to his chagrin, this was not to be case, and with the toss won the Crossers were batting first.

CJE and Raja got us started.  Any delivery off the bat that missed the fielder generally scooted for four and it seemed that occupation of the crease by the Cross for the full 50 overs would inevitably lead to a decent total.  However, Accies had a different plan.  A. Carmichael and Jones bowled a good opening spell, with Carmichael getting the first of what would be 5 victims of the day when he got one to move a lot to CJE not offering a shot.  Shannon made a nice steady start before edging one.  At the other end Raja looked in fine nick. Some sweet striking allowed him to get to 29 in quick order before a short delivery that didn’t bounce found him trapped in front of his stumps LBW.  A harsh end to what was building to be another entertaining innings.  Owais and Spickers fell to the same fate – caught C Carmichael, bowled A Carmichael, with the latter removing the top five batsmen (9-1-58-5), a great effort.

The Crossers needed a partnership to steady the ship and got this in the shape of Julius and Dougie.  Both looked to play sensibly but punish the bad ball, and had added 46 to the total before Dougie mis-judged a full toss to be caught.  Julius needed some partners to hang around but Tom, GT and Vikram disappeared quickly (GT very quickly) with only 15 added for the three wickets, so it was left to Usama to play very well keeping the ball out at one end and nicking the odd single while Julius looked to add as many runs as possible.  The last wicket added 31 runs, with Jules, having to force the issue, finally popping one up to the Accies skipper Moffat who had bowled a good spell for 4-23.  Julius finished with 58, a classy innings peppered with a high proportion of boundaries.

The teams retired to the clubhouse for the customary fine spread with a total of 160 looking at least 80-100 runs short of par.
After re-fuelling and the inspirational appearance of former 1^st team skipper E.C Smith (conveniently just in time for the troughing), Holy Cross took the field aiming to make a decent fist of things.  They got off to the best possible start, Vikram removing the Accies no.2 with his first ball of the day.  Unfortunately, this success was shortly followed by Vikram breaking down with injury no. 73 of the season thus far, limiting his spell to only 2 overs.  The Cross needed wickets to fall regularly and this was the case with Accies reduced to 74 for 5, with Shannon claiming two wickets and GT and Dougie one apiece.  The outcome was by now not a foregone certainty and one or two more quick wickets would put us in the driving seat.  It wasn’t to be – the Accies middle order realising that getting the runs was never going to be an issue started to nudge the ones and twos and waited for the four-ball rather than going looking for it.  Rive, Paton and Moffat all made good contributions with Banerjee also supporting well.  Some last minute excitement was provided with Shannon having his last over at the newly-arrived-to-the-crease Jones with Accies still needing 8 to win.  There followed an inside edge for 4 that just missed leg stump and a sharp chance dropped in the slips. Had either of those deliveries gone differently the Cross may still have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.   In the end Accies finished 161-8 and took the 20 points.  One that got away…

*insert from the absent Skip - luckily for the Cross, on Saturday MDAFS and St Boswells were both defeated by the other 2 teams at the tail of the league table! So fortunately we hold on to 4th place by tooth and nails!!!