2nds Round Up - Our Cup Run is Over. Concentrating on the League.

On Sunday, a good mix of 2s and 3s travelled down to the Borders to take on Hawick & Wilton in the semi-final of the Presidents Plate. Unfortunately, the side wasn't a particularly good mix of bowlers and batsmen and our shortage in the bowling department showed as H&W racked up 171 all out in their 30 overs with suicidal run outs (including, if I remember right, one between twins - aren't they supposed to be telepathic?) accounting for almost half the wickets.

We started slowly against a good attack (how many giant left-armers can one club have?) and were fortunate that Hawick's catching was malfunctioning almost as badly as their calling. It was only really when BAF (45) started to go after the change bowling that we felt we had any kind of a sniff and we still arrived at the final over needing around 30. Even with an occasional bowler on for a lone over, a miracle to eclipse even Doogs' efforts of the day before was required. Helped out by a couple of head high no balls, Cruiky (28 no) spanked plenty, but not quite enough, and we fell 9 short.

Hawick are a good bunch and the game was played in a fine spirit, occasionally enlivened by some very vocal sledging from the kids mucking around in the nets. If all games in this competition were like this the Presidents Plate would be good fun, but the sad truth is that there are far too many walkovers (this was only the second game we'd actually played this year). Rethink needed.

Meanwhile two further Saturday wins have left the 2nds guaranteed third place in Division 5 and still with an outside chance of coming second - either would be easily our best finish for several years. We started with an 87 run win at Livingston, set up by a ton from JB and finished off by 4 wickets from Abdul. Then came a five wicket win against Edinburgh South on a tricky strip at Inch Park. South were all out for 86 with Amjid taking three scalps and we ground out the win in the 36th over (with Gus McLean bowling his usual excellent spell: 9-5-6-3) largely thanks to a gritty stand between JB and Dan. In both games Dom and Irfan combined to remove the opposition's most important batsman.

One point worth noting (again) is the huge improvement in our fielding this year. We haven't dropped many (although JB will definitely be practising this winter), Dom seems to have the makings of a second Ziggy and some of the catches have bordered on the spectacular, most recently Abdul (running round the fine leg boundary) and Gerry (slip) at Livingston, and Quinny (diving forward in the covers) against South.