Rainy, Rainy go away!

Holy X 1st XI v Feruchie – Arbo 19^th July

The morning dawned quite nice in Edinburgh, but a rather menacing afternoon weather report saw an early txt from the Feruchie skip looking for any potential of early call off.

11:30am arrived and with the clouds gathering, Arbo was warm and very muggy.  For the first time in a long time, McOscar lost a toss and Holy Cross were put in to bat. Strange decision as Feruchie only had 10 men and a number of their 1^st XI not playing.

We started poorly with Saideep playing over the top of a slow in-swinging yorker on the first ball of the second over, gone for a duck! Holy Cross 4-1 off 1.1 – perhaps not such a silly move to make us bat first….

There were comical scenes with Charlie’s first ball, as he played a dead bat forward defence off Gourlay, who would be classed as a military medium swing bowler. To his shock, the bottom half of his new Bubble bat (provided by Holy X’s new Del-boy Jimmy McOscar) exploded on impact with the ball and one chunk narrowly missed taking out his off stump!

McOscar and Ellis set about rebuilding, against some very good bowling by the Freuchie Pro Akbar and Gourlay. It was slow going, with very few poor deliveries and we managed to tick it over at 2’s an over, until spin was introduced at the Ferry Road end in the 9^th over.

The clouds were getting heavier and some light rain started falling with a second spinner introduced at the clubhouse end, McOscar then nibbled at a ball on a good line and length and gifted a catch to the keeper, who must have been watching MS Dhoni’s tactic of standing 4 foot back for a spinner!

The Cross now 31-2.

Raja was the next man to go, after bludgeoning 10 runs off 2 scoring strokes. Looking for a third boundary, he was struck in front, with the umpire hardly needing to lift his finger as Raja was so plumb he pretty much turned his back and walked off!

OK, so the Feruchie decision to bowl first now looking a good one with HX 42-3!

Jules and Charlie then started taking advantage of the spin bowlers struggling to grip a now wet ball and put on 50 runs in 21 minutes, all while the rain started falling heavier and heavier.

We’d progressed through to 92-3 off 21.2, when the wet stuff just got too heavy to stay out in the middle.

An early tea was taken, more to watch what was happening in the British Open, but time was called on the day’s cricket at 2:30pm with Charlie 34* and Jules on 24*.

A frustrating way to end what was shaping as a very promising innings

Let's hope for better weather next weekend for our critical clash v MDAFS!