Season ends in the darkness at Grange Loan

Holy X 1st XI v Carlton 2's

Saturday dawned fine enough and looked like we’d get to at least start the final league match of the season, although some heavy downpours had been predicted from mid-afternoon onwards.

This fixture had little on the line for Holy Cross as we could finish no lower than 6^th or possibly 7^th if we got absolutely gubbed and Penicuik managed to do the unthinkable and beat Glenrothes.

For Carlton on the other hand, this game had huge importance, in terms of their hopes of avoiding automatic relegation, as they were about 1% behind West Lothian in 8th place!

It was an unusual start to the match, as I lost the toss for only the 2^nd time this season! Brad elected to bowl and have us set them a target to chase down.

We got off to almost the perfect start, with Saideep playing an exquisite lofted straight drive over mid-off for 4 runs, from a rather bewildered looking Ahmed Shah. Unfortunately Saideep missed his third ball, a straight delivery that hit middle pin, reducing the Cross to 4-1 off just 3 balls.

Raja and myself then built a handy partnership reaching 53-1 off 13 overs, when I somehow managed to hit a straight drive to a diving Aslam at mid-wicket who took a tidy catch. Charlie and Raja added 19 runs for the 3^rd wicket, before Charlie repeated my dismissal, of which CoCo took great joy in reminding me of that fact!

In came the master blaster Owais and he had Raja took to their typical  style, singles + 4’s or 6’s and started building a nice total. At drinks we were 97-3 with both guys looking comfortable. After another 10 overs had passed we were on 135-3 when the predicted afternoon rain dumped a large amount of water in the space of about 20 minutes.

Early tea was taken and play resumed at 4:02pm, however the break in play really halted our momentum. We lost Raja for a fine 83, who was looking well set to easily pass 3 figures with 12 overs still remaining.

Then Dougie was run out for just 2, 3 overs later.

Owais fell a couple of overs after for a solid 30 and Holy X had slumped to 158-6 off 42.

Jimmy’s stay at the crease was short lived, getting bowled round his legs by a fine bit of leg-spin bowling from Aslam. Which sparked scenes that will surely lead Jimmy to take home the award for Hissy Fit of the season and reduced another of his bats to firewood!

As usual, Julius provided some entertainment with some lovely hockey shots, scoring 24 runs in pretty reasonable time. He and Bonfield had put on 20 runs in 5 overs, before Newman hitt a catch high in the air off McKay in the final over, which left Bacon to stand at the non-strikers end for the final delivery of our innings.

Holy Cross finishing 189-8 off 50.

A decent and defendable total, but possibly 20-30 runs short considering we were 135-3 off 35 overs!

After a quick turn-around, the plan was to try and restrict Carlton in terms of runs and pick up the odd wicket. With one eye on the weather, I was hoping we’d get to the 20 over mark before the rain arrived again and hopefully be ahead using the trusty ESCA Rain Calculator.

There was plenty of banter in the changing shed as Shannon and Charlie were only separated by 1 wicket for their season tallies, so I decided to let them go head to head and open the bowling in partnership for what I believe was the first time this season.

Both bowled extremely well and gave away very few runs, Shannon typically being too good to get the much needed edge and Charlie working away to bore the batsmen into a loose shot. Bonfield made the breakthrough in the 9^th over Bowling MacPherson for just 5, reducing Carlton to 16-1.

I had already made the decision to take Shannon off and bring on Bacon, to try and race through some overs, but the rain beat me to it! Off for another delay after 11.5 overs, however we were able to get back on after only 20 minutes off the field.

At the end of 12^th, Carlton were 19-1 and Charlie had bowled 6 overs and only conceded 3 runs! Which included 3 maidens, 1 wide and 1 no-ball!

The introduction of Bacon saw him pick up wickets in his first and fourth overs, which was also followed by Charlie taking a wicket in his final over.

Carlton now really struggling at 46-4 off 20 and Holy Cross in total control, particularly with the light now starting to fade and another large group of black clouds about to swallow up any sunlight that could potentially see us get through the final 30 overs.

Ali Shah and Atkin then put on a useful 50 run partnership for the 5^th wicket, which was aided by the odd loose ball here and there. But in general, Raja and Newman both bowled some good lines and we were still pretty sharp in the field. So at the 30 over mark Holy Cross were still ahead in my mind, having restricted Carlton to 90-4.

After Shah departed for a well compiled 42, although he was given a couple of chance in Bonfield’s final over, with a dropped catch by Spickers and a very close LBW shout turned down. Newman then managed to capture the wicket of big hitting Atkin for 26 a few overs later – Carlton now 116-6 off 37 overs and 189 looked a long way off in the impending darkness.

With our main guns bowled out already, the ball was tossed back to Bacon and Dougie was introduced at the 42 over mark with Wells and F. Allardice already having added 28 off their last 5 overs.

These 2 batted extremely well, both patiently waited for and also put away any bad balls, as well as ran between the wickets with a spritely nature that is sadly lacking at the Cross.

Bacon who bowled very well, was taken for 10 runs from his 7^th over, the 45^th of the innings (which unfortunately including 2 overthrows). This took the equation for Carlton down to needing 26 runs off 30 balls.

With Bonfiled, Ellis and Javed all having completed their 10 overs, I decided to roll the arm over, which initially paid dividends for Carlton. I made the error of moving Dougie back up to a regulation Square Leg, then Wells delightfully clipped the very next ball past Dougie for 4.

Carlton now needing just 21 runs off 28 balls.

With the light fading rapidly and the umpires having a quick chat, but deciding to keep going, Carlton only needed 7 runs from the final 12 balls to take out what seemed like a very unlikely victory at several different points of the game.

I bowled the 49 over and the first 4 delivery went for 3 runs, so 4 required off 9 ball, surely Carlton were in sight of an important victory, which would see them leap above West Lothian and out of the final automatic relegation spot on the league table.

By this time, even I was struggling to see Wells taking his guard at the other end of the pitch. With the 5^th ball of the over, I managed to pick up an inside edge which was held by Spickers and a huge appeal, somewhat belatedly saw Umpire Smith raise his finger and send Wells back to the hut with 46 next to his name in the book.

He’d taken Carlton to the brink of victory, 186-7 with 7 balls remaining!

With no further runs coming off the last ball of the 49^th, Dougie stepped up to bowl the last over in now near darkness. 4 runs required off 6 balls.

Dougie’s first 2 balls saw 2 dots and then a single, which seemingly swung the pendulum back towards the Cross. With his 3^rd ball of the over, he clean bowled R. Allardice with a well-pitched full delivery.

Carlton now 187-8.

In marched the Carlton Skipper MacKay, who with 2 balls remaining needed to somehow score 3 runs in what was almost complete darkness. Dougie darted one in sharp and yet another dot ball.

Carlton now requiring 3 runs off the final ball to win.

In moved Dougie to deliver the final ball, MacKay took a swipe at the ball and made a pretty decent connection straight down the ground to Raja left at mid-on. Young Allardice had taken off out of the non-strikers crease like Usain Bolt and had rapidly turned for the second, before Raja had made it to the ball.

The throw came in, but Allardice was well home taking Carlton to an identical score of 189-8 and game tied.

It was a fitting end to a game that both sides will feel they probably should have won at various points in the second innings.

Looking back you will always see moments which could have changed the outcome in your favour, such as one less wide, one less miss-field, or a dropped catch being taken etc etc etc.

Walking off and shaking hands with the Carlton lads, they were visibly disappointed that they hadn’t done enough to win the game and ensure they jumped over West Lothian.

Not long after getting off the park, after some furious calculations, an almighty roar emerged from the Carlton changing rooms. The 15 points from the drawn game was enough to move them up in to 7^th place and out of automatic relegation.

The draw saw us move back in to 5^th place in the Championship. I had targeted a top 5 finish at the start of the season, so am pretty happy to have ticked that off and guaranteed our place in the 2015 edition of the ESCA Championship.

Many thanks to all the guys who played for the 1^st XI in the league and other competitions this season. We used a total of 29 players in the Championship, which is quite impressive for a small club like Holy Cross.

I’d particularly like to thank the chaps that stepped in and took over the Skipper duties in my absence and also the guys from the 2’s and 3’s, who played a major part in several games. Which included a very important victory over Penicuik, in which we played 5 guys from our 2/3’s!

So all in all a good season for the 1^st XI in my eyes and looking forward to the awards evening on the 30^th!

League Weekend 18

Saturday -

• 1sts vs Carlton 2nds, away.
• 2nds vs Selkirk at Arbo.

Sunday -

• Presidents Plate final vs Tranent at Arbo.

The 3rds' last game of the season is at Inverleith Park next Saturday and will be followed by a barbecue and Awards Night.

WAMMO - Fantasy Cricket

We generally enjoy our visits to Fettes to play Grange, though we generally enjoy the off-field activities more than the on-field. There's the annual search for CJ Barker's name on the College honours board in the historic pavilion with its historic/fetid (Fettid?) loos. There's the annual wondering why N Webb and the pool team don't have a board of their own. Towards the end there's the annual boundary golf. And in between there's the annual defeat.

Best name ever? WAMMO Montgomery-Cuninghame.

This year's defeat was less crushing than some, and certainly less crushing than our earlier meeting this season, but only for strange reasons that we'll come to later.

The game started quite well as Ross took a tumbling catch in the covers to dismiss Metcalfe and optimism began to spread as Collister (hotfoot, or rather hot-tyred, along with Andy G from a Grange hockey match on the other side of the vast Fettes sports campus) scored all his early runs with aerial shots sliced through the covers while Bray played and missed. But positivity was as ill-judged as the shorts worn by three of our number on the coldest and windiest afternoon of the season and Collister (112) and Bray (78) built a fine 200 run stand. Gerry Lohan and Matt Henton in particular bowled well early on and there was a flurry of wickets in the last few overs, but this stand was the basis of a formidable 238 for 6.

Any tea to which Aqeel Aslam has contributed is a fine tea, but sadly it didn't fortify the Cross batting much. When the rain that had been threatening all afternoon finally arrived to put paid to the game we were 84 for 5 in the 22nd over, thanks in no small part to a fine spell from Tomar (6-1-9-2).

It was, therefore, with some surprise that we found a few days later that we had only lost by 52 runs according to the ESCA Rain Calculator. The Rain Calculator is a mysterious beast. Earlier this season it decided that Stirling County 3rds, 77 for 7 against us when the game was abandoned after 25 overs, would have gone on to make 134. Now it peered into the future and opined that our last five wickets would have added a further 102 runs at over 4 an over.

Of course, Andy G was 16 not out at the end and already biffing merrily (and oddly straight and offsidedly), so perhaps the Rain Calculator saw another Graham ton on the way. Or maybe it thought Gerry and Smudge were set to sweep and scamper the runs? Or perhaps Andy Donaldson was going to open his mighty shoulders and spank some sixes? We hear that the ESCA boffins will be working through the winter to upgrade the system to produce extrapolated scorecards, but for now, sadly, we will never know.

Gone With the Wind - 3rds' Promotion Hopes Blown Away in St Andrews

Alex Candlish reports -

On a blustery afternoon in St Andrews 11 brave Crossers (there were only 8 four weeks earlier) rocked up with a sense of optimism that two successive promotions could be achieved. What a difference four hours of blustery cricket makes.

Captain Carnage (or MS Candlish) won the toss and chose to bat in what was a 50/50 call on whether to bat or bowl first. You may be told differently by 10 other Crossers but with our chasing record I will stick up for myself in this instance.

Mahmood and Ken opened the batting with their typical watchful play as HX made it to the 10 over mark with no wickets down but with only 15 or so on the  board. Ken's wicket in the 11th over brought El Pres to the crease only to be bowled first ball. Mike Nevin survived the hat-trick ball but he and Mahmood were soon gone and others followed in a flurry of wickets as Largo continued to bowl well. Kappy Gilmore looked to steady the ship for a while with some solid forward defensives but, after agreeing that we was going to block out a few more, Elmo attempted to smash a 6 back to Arbo into the wind and was caught on the boundary. A classic HX batting collapse - all out for 53 in about 27 overs. Savage amusement as my father says.

Despite having an excellent bowling line-up, 53 was just never going to be enough and the much sought after victory eluded us as Largo passed out total in around 22 overs.

1st XI Secure Championship Status

A bit better... with the 1sts ensuring they will (barring another league reconstruction!) definitely play in the ESCA Championship in 2015 with a solid win over Penicuik. Though the pitch had some mixed bounce, 125 was always likely to be comfortable total to chase. It certainly was after Saideep Kc & Raja's early onslaught - 60 off the 1st 6 overs! 4 wickets from Shannon (should have been a five-for...) and a perfect 'spell' by Rob Bainbridge were the highlights of the bowling effort. It also featured one of the slowest opening bowlers in ESCA history... The match may also have featured GT's retirement-but we hope not. 

Scorecard here:
http://www.cricketstats.org.uk/esca/2014/1/0509.html


Meanwhile the 2's lost (by a margin) on D/L as driving rain brought their match with Grange 3's at Fettes to an early conclusion. Despite some nice driving from JB & some biffing from Andy Graham, Grange's 238 always looked beyond the HX 2's.
The 3rds' promotion chances ended with a bad loss at St Andrews vs Largo. We believe it was bad... Alex Candlish wasn't prepared to divulge any details...

League Weekend 17

Saturday's fixtures -

• 1sts vs Penicuik at Arbo.
• 2nds vs Grange 3rds at Fettes.
• 3rds vs Largo 3rds at St Andrews.

Sunday -

• Presidents Plate semi-final vs Preston Village at Arbo.

Cor! Stuffing. 2s Mauled by Lions.

Another sterling effort by the selectors had just about scraped together 11 for the game against high-flying RH Corstorphine 2nds. But at 1pm there were only ten Crossers present. Who was missing?

Not Bainbro, who had driven back from Manchester, powered by Red Bull and indignation over the Old Trafford authorities' squeamishness over a damp patch in the outfield. (It wouldn't happen at Arbo - the squeamishness, that is, rather than the damp patch). Nor any of the drivers who had been forced by the foodie gathering in Inverleith Park to dump their cars so far from the ground that frankly they might as well have left them at the Lions' HQ in Barnton. No. It was Willie Lytle, marooned on Inchcolm island in the middle of the Forth by a late-returning boat - easily the best Cross excuse since Norrie was "detained" for the trip to Prestonpans two years ago.

I'm labouring all this introductory stuff because, sadly, an account of the game itself has little to offer the average Cross-fanatic reader of this blog. We lost too many early wickets to over-ambitious attack against disciplined bowling on a wicket that occasionally offered surprising bounce and so found ourselves 48 for 4 and 67 for 5 before rallying to 159 for 8. The rally was almost entirely down to an entertaining stand of 60 between Quinny (46) and Vik (29) who showed the application the top order, with the partial exception of BAF, hadn't. Vik's knock finished 4-4-4-out and finally messed up Gibson's otherwise excellent figures of 8-1-40-4. How Abid (9-4-13-0) didn't take a wicket or three is anyone's guess and West (9-5-14-1) and Dutia (9-2-36-2) offered excellent support for the openers with nagging accuracy and flighted leg-spin respectively.

We had an early breakthrough as BAF pulled off another run-out (rather less slow-mo than the one against Watsonians) to dismiss the dangerous Sathiy. Praveen (7-2-22-0) and Bainbro (9-2-32-0) produced tight and threatening opening spells. But then it all went downhill fairly quickly as Gus Hoffman (113 no) took charge. JB, who was bowling like a drain (straight and full of sh*t), suffered the most as Hoffman peppered the short legside boundary. A Corstorphine win by 8 wickets with 14 overs to spare was a fair reflection of the gulf - they should do very well next year in Division 3.

Fuds' Fielding is the Highlight of the Weekend of Woe!

[Andy G reports on the match between HX 3's & Glenrothes 3's]

The 3rd X trucked to Glens on Saturday morning full of beans and arrived early. Yes that's right, 9 of 10 arrived at 12.15!! Unheard of! So in order to not embarrass ourselves with any sort of warm up we hung out in the changing room until 1250 mostly chatting about how good England are and what would Dhoni do against Coco's pace?!

Naturally Mahmood rocked up at 5 to 1 ...and to the wrong car park.

We were told that we'd be playing on the big pitch! That would have been great!! Unfortunately, it was really wet after the night before - the groundsman had said it needed watered so didn't put the covers on overnight! We would have played if there was no alternative but thought it would be a much better game if we played on the arti!

We assembled the nets around the outfield (though this didn't help as we still lost 6 balls - don't worry Jon only 1 new one was lost!) and tossed up. I won the toss and decided to bat, mostly cause I was a bit tired after hockey pre-season fitness and didn't want to field until I'd had tea! It's the finer details that determines decisions of what way the captain will elect to start the game when he wins the toss...

So Mahmood and Mike kitted up and sauntered in! The first ball; Mike hits it straight to a fielder and shouts YES! in true Nevin style. Mahmood sprints 2 paces then falls over in the middle of the crease. The Glenrothes fielder launches the ball in and the wickety was haulted by their skipper from taking the bails, very sporting !! Mahmood reciprocated by not scoring a run off the next 19 balls he faced - good coastal erosion!

Nevin hit 3 and was bowled bringing the Parker to the crease. He had gone to his brother's for tea the night before so was full of good red wine and brandy - unfortunately this wasn't a winning combination! It needs to be rum before a cricket game Ross, you know that!!
Ross went to hit one and it went high - their skippa made up some  ground to take it at mid on!

So I pop in at the 16th over. I'd been scoring since the start and really needed a wazz but couldn't leave scoring cause i'd been next in since the 12th! I decided I just had to see off 4 overs before scuttling off behind a container!! After 19 overs we had 44 runs (only 14 off 4 with me and Mahmood so pretty slow!) Mahmood then gets bowled!! This brought in the powerhouse - Fraser Buchanan. We had drinks - and I excused myself - and this brought a lease of life to the Cross!

It also made the wicket keeper a bit chattier - after i'd scratched around a bit for the last 4 overs he was getting chirpier (asking if I knew that we were playing cricket? did I know I needed to try and hit the rope? Were we trying to get 70 to get 1 batting point? Did my shorts and sock combination come in white cause the blue looks a bit village?)

I enjoyed this chat ... A lot! It was really good - I had a chat with him after and said if he ever moved to Edinburgh he should come to the cross. I asked him if he would like to put someone on the rope at cow corner and he said that because I hadn't hit a shot past short mid on. So I gave Butchy the wink ...

We proceeded to smack the ball around all corners of the ground.
After the 20th over (having hit a 6 and 2 4s to cow / long mid on) I asked the wickey the same question- they then had 3 on that boundary! Butchy and I hit 90 off 9 overs before I played across a straight one and was bowled for 68! Disaster, I didn't think and was punished! Bit silly but I made it to 400 for the season, only 20 odd short of Ross last season so I'll take that!

Butchy shortly followed me back to the rope on 26 a good but short lived partnership!
Dom and Elmondt were in next. Dom 'the new Mike Nevin' McMonagle played technically well but couldn't get the ball off the square. He then calamitously ran Elmondt out ... He still thinks there was a run straight to a lad in the covers!

There was a little wagging of the tail with Andy Donaldson striking a good 6 and losing a ball. But we were done-168 all out! Not a terrible score but with that short boundary we probably needed more than 200.

Delicious tea - someone had clearly been watching the Bake Off as there was a rather delightful carrot cake sitting out! Scrumptious !

Elmondt and Dom opened the bowling. Both bowled really well, Elmondt cracked open the wickets with a chap trying to hit him and Butchy back peddling in to take it at short mid wicket! Unfortunately we didn't take any more early wickets and although we limited them to 35 off 16, it wasn't quite enough - Elmo went for 4 runs and Dom 31.

Ross, in his second over picked up a wicket! He bowled an absolute howler of a ball - so bad that he'd already turned his back so he didn't have to look at it go over the rope. But never fear bucket hands McGonagle had it covers a great diving catch on the boundary bundling himself forward to not allow it over the rope! Great catch - catch of the season for me!

This opened them up a little bit with Coco taking one at the other end. A shot from their no. 4 getting scooped high in the air, spinning like mad off the edge - only for Gareth Howlett to get himself in a really good position to take the catch! Really good catch again! Coco bowled another; the spin, pace and flight confused the young keeper!
The last wicket we took was from Andy Donaldson -again another of these catch things! Elmondt at deep mid off! Excellent catching display; 4 of 4 taken on the day!

Although it was too little. They dispatched our short deliveries for 4s and 6s with one chap making 97*. If we had one more player either a bat to score 30 more runs or a bowler to get a couple more tight overs then we would have had a bit more of a chance.
A really commendable effort from the troops, everyone contributed with either a run, a catch or a wicket! Couldn't ask for much more against the league champs.

So it's not in our hands to go up any more but I tell you something selection's looking rosy for Saturday and our match away to Largo!!

Sunday Match OFF-

Today's track. @HXCricket pic.twitter.com/Q4EaJ03WeP
— Brian Adam Fraser (@beefrazor) August 10, 2014

Some might say...a shame the rain didn't arrive 24 hrs earlier

League Weekend 18 - Our 1000th Post

Saturday's League fixtures -

• 1sts vs Grange 2nds, away.
• 2nds vs RH Corstorphine 2nds at Arbo.
• 3rds vs Glenrothes 3rds, away.

Sunday -

• Presidents Plate semi-final vs Preston Village at Arbo, 1pm start.

This is our 1000th blog post. So far it's almost as dull as the first, the thrillingly titled AGM News, from April 2009. That one deservedly got a duck according to the Google Blogger stattos with precisely zero page views. We've got a little better at finding an audience as things have gone on, with a total of just under 130,000 page views over the last five years and six seasons.

The top posts? A Ziggy match rant report? A KF essay on the Ashes or sermon on the evils of warming up? Something lavishly illustrated with Broon's superb photos?  No. The toppest, oddly, is Last Trophy of 2011. First Trophy of 2012, Charlie's telegraphic account of our Presidents Trophy triumph over Fauldhouse, with well over 4000 views. Strangely this is more than a hundred times as many readers as bothered to look up KF's excellent later photo-essay on the same game, Cup Final Pics.

Charlie obviously has a populist touch as the number two post with over 1500 views is Coaching Corner (part 2 of a continuing series) an essay on the importance of the long barrier technique and CA Smith's failure to deploy it correctly (although it was all, of course, EC Smith's fault). [Part 1, for those interested, was an essay on the forward defensive and Ellis Senior's failure to deploy it correctly .....]

In third place, with over 500 views, is Bainbro's Saturday Night Entertainment, outlining plans for the 2011 club arm-wrestling tournament. Bainbro was also responsible in a sense for number 4, JB's pulsating account of the 2nds' tie with Preston Village earlier this season, Saideep Stars as Twos Tie. Its 538 views were almost entirely down to Bainbro posting a link on Saideep's Facebook account - few Crossers past or present can have had so many digital fans, although KF's recent account of our complete humping by Glenrothes looked on course for a similar readership after an umpire circulated a link to his colleagues. Thankfully JB edited out all the interesting comments in that one before it could attract an even wider readership, or it might have displaced some of KF's finest work from the top five, namely his remarkable dissection of the Norrie Webb myth, Webb Posting, which mystified 299 readers including FFS (remember him?).