Mixed fortunes for the Cross.

Given that it was a sunny afternoon I decided to wander down and see how the Cross were getting on. I was impressed by the young athletes flinging themselves around the park...but I soon moved on from The Grange and arrived at Arbo.

There, a familiar looking 2nd XI were in confident mood having bowled out Glenrothes 3rds for 103. Despite arriving late (forcing Michael to sub field) Smudger picked up 5 wickets.

I nipped over to Inverleith to catch the final 7 balls of the match.. The firsts had recovered from 35/6 thanks to a decent partnership between Owais and Robin but 84 was never likely to test SMRH 2's (especially on a true artificial pitch..)-they surpassed HX's total in just under 20 overs. Disappointing after last week's good start to the season.

Back to Arbo. Coastal Ken had been dismissed (a lengthy duck) but Ziggy (47no) and JB (35no) knocked off the runs with relative ease (even if Jon did receive a couple of let-offs). Confidence building win for the twos.

Post match drinks in the Arbo sun made me think I'd stepped through a wormhole...same people*, same view... same chat..
*in fairness there were a few new faces, which is encouraging to see.

But where is McGILL?????

Fixture Congestion Eased

At the behest of Lord Admin, we have been busily engaging in a purge of fixture commitments by exiting tournaments in some haste.

Apologies for lack of details, I don't have any scorecards to hand.

On Sunday we travelled to Glasgow Accies (Gaccies v Haccies?) and were beaten with a couple of overs to spare. We made 144 all out which just wasn't enough in the end, top scorer most likely Gary T. Highlights included a comedy leave to a steepler by McGill on the boundary (as he didn't touch it, it doesn't count as a drop) and the best over of Dougie's career as he unleashed some unfeasible turn. Super Ted let us down badly after recent cup heroics collecting a Golden amidst a hat-trick and trashing his 1st XI average. Later Broonster incurred some jewel damage in a plucky last wicket stand and has been sitting down very carefully ever since.

Quote of the day by Broonster; "Stood on the scales this morning and I've lost 14lbs in two months. Nearly lost 2 stones in a day in Glasgow".

Man of the match - Their 5-for debutant.

Just found this - Glasgow Accies v Holy Cross
Note - This scorecard says Ted & Ziggy both made 1, from 1 ball, and were bowled. I'll need that explained to me.

Note the car headlights in the car park

On Tuesday we had the pleasure of playing on the Arty at Roseburn against Mufs in another semi final. It was damp, grey and gloomy at the start and got damper, greyer and gloomier. Ach I'll just come out and say it, Bimbo dropped the cup!!! Asif Mohammed who went on to blast 64 in no time was on about 2 when he toed one high towards long on, but Bimbo's bouncy mitts gave the Mufs man a second chance.

Gary T chips one into the gap

The next over Trewartha was blasted for two 6's and a 4 and wasn't the only one to suffer. So Dougie chucked the ball to Bimbo and asked him to make amends, but said ball was then brutally despatched straight back over his head and probably over the Water of Leith as well. It was never found. A local battleaxe walking her great great great grandchild took that opportunity to scold our humble skipper along the lines of Health & Safety (even although the ball cleared the path, the curmudgeon and her little miracle by about 3,000 feet).

Once Mohammed departed, the Cross bowlers regained control and were able to restrict the hosts to only 139. Owais (7), Me (7) & McO (2) got us off to a rubbish start. Gary T salvaged a decent 30 in the middle somewhere, but the rest of us were unable to deal with the scoreboard pressure, the invisible ball and the dancing feet of their opening bowler (you had to be there). The innings finished with Sandy & Andy R needing just eight 6's from the last 8 balls and they let us down very badly as the innings concluded at 93-10 from 19 overs.

Man of the Match - Bobby Bainbridge.

Russell Regime Diktat #0002

JC, he say OMG

The Holy Democratic Committee of the New Way for the Cricketing Crossers would like to thank all of the Great & Fit Men who attended Winter Nets on Saturday. Our newly installed covert iris recognition system calculated 24 (twenty four) able men in attendance. This required the complete facilitation of the facilities, or in other words, the use of all 4 (four) available nets.

This remarkable achievement is believed to be the first time that the use of 2 (two) nets has ever been exceeded by our venerable institution. The astonishing show of club unity is also a powerful vindication of the demanding new standards of Captain Russell.

Four Lanes

Let us pray that it is not an early pinnacle of His second coming!!!

At one point Lord Admin was overheard to mutter that there were "too many people here", but his office have since retracted this as "mis-speak" after a subsequent update of the weekly accounts showed a marked increase in revenue.

Legends in attendance at Le Galleon included the very dishonourable Coco McGogo, Jerry 'Lohan' Garcia & both Sir Shanton John AND his new bride Dame Bimbo Furnish.

There are now only 2 (two) nets remaining this pre-season on the next two Saturday's, 17th & 24th March.

The Russell Regime hereby urges a note of caution. We cannot get carried away with this amazingness and must ensure that a high attendance is maintained. See you next Saturday, normal rules apply.

5 under 30 !

[Andy G reports on the 3rds game at Dunfermline. Some of the references may be lost on older readers...well me at least. cje].

The car journey through was quite a fun one hearing stories from the night before (Ted's clubbing tactics) and learning that Jonny Ladd hasn't set foot in fingers [that sounds painful] - I feel the Holy X BBQ team should head there next sat so Ladd can see the big time. The 'young team' (Andy G, Cunningham, Ted and Jonny) arrived first at Dunfermline to be greeted by a 'sweet old man' who asked us if it would be possible to help him remove the covers from the strip. What we didn't realise was that we were about to reveal the wettest wicket we had ever seen - the old boy wasn't happy at the ''f****** f*** c****'' who had played on it the day before and had ruined his precious surface! [I feel his pain].

Fortunately the pitch had an artificial strip [um -that sentence would profit from a re-write] so it was game on but not before an inquiry about the number of ringers in the Holy X side!! One Dunfermline player stated that he hadn't seen a HX 3rd XI with so many youngsters - with 5 under 30 yrs old: AG's secret plan to get rid of anyone over 45 youth policy is obviously working!!

Skip Lawrie won the toss and elected to field - an excellent decision! We opened with Matt Cunningham and Keith Geddes. After giving Malinga a few pointers midweek, Matt took wickets in his 1st and 2nd overs with balls that swung both ways as well as moving off the seam in each direction [??]. He took a third later in his spell. Bowling very well, Matt could have had a handful [hatful?]- Russell Eberst pulling off a fantastic dive which came millimetres from the catch of his the century. Keith joined the party [surely he's been a member since he was 18?] too by adding 2 of his own - inc. the old codger from the start - an annoyed Keith bowled an extra quick one after the old boy requested that the next (''c***'') batsman stopped warming up in the nets!

After bowling their overs out, Keith and Matt combined had 5 wickets for around 40 runs. Now it was time for the youth policy to take full effect - Coco and Ellis Snr stepped to the plate [bloody Americanisms!].

Both bowled with the complete lack of pace guile and elegance that has come to be expected by the 3s. The wickets tumbled, including Dunfermline's very young and very good opening batsman (unsure of name) who scored 44 with no lives lost [?? lets hope not..only a game etc..] before he sucumed to Ellis Snr's bowling and was caught by Graham at mid off. Ellis Snr ended up with 4 wickets and Coco 1 [grrrr] - via a top spinner that dipped right at the last second (lovely!).

Special mention to a top fielding effort - the best display I've seen all year [praise indeed!] with the batsmen hardly getting the ball off the square and very few 4s being hit; thanks to Ted on the offside chasing hard to the boundary! (good to see he had some energy left..) Nick Jones took his first Cross catch (a jug) [why was he catching a jug during a cricket match?] and Jonny Ladd was even eager to get the helmet on at silly mid on ... What a lad! [this is getting smutty].

Final score 81 all out. We were offered tea either then or after our innings but wise words came from Ted Allat ''We should have tea now ... The hangover needs fed!''

Cracking tea BTW! [that's 'by the way', btw]

Opening the batting were Coastal and Dave Gilmour Mike Nevin. They made around 30 which gave us a solid platform. There was the usual dodgy running between the wickets until Mike got an edge to the wickey from the batsman [not a bowler?] who scored all their runs (he got all their wickets too) [ah...now I understand]. Their leg spinner was on form, getting Matt and Ken via edges too!

At around 50-3 Andy G (24*) and Ellis Snr (14*) finished off the innings by spanking the ball around. Andy G hit the leggy for 3 fours in a row obviously all classical cover drives slog sweeps!

A brilliant victory for the Cross one which will be remembered for Ellis Snr's wickets, Andy G's pulling, Ted's pulling the night before and some awesome fielding!

Bates and Zig propel 2nds.

Ists.
Div 1 (Arboretum)

Boroughmuir 8-0 (1.4 overs) vs Holy Cross.

match abandoned-pitch deemed to be too wet to continue.

2nds
Div 5 (Inverleith Park-Artificial)
[delayed start-match reduced to 40 overs per side]

Holy Cross 2nds 251/3 (40 overs)
J. Bates 103, A. Cydzik 64*, N. Webb 37.

OC's 169/7 (40 overs).
V. Mohanan 38, K. Thompson 34, A. Tocher 31

Cross 1- Largo 1, 3rds Won!

Saturday results digest:

1sts.-at East Drive, Largo

Largo 92ao
R. Worsnop 3/19
S. Bonfield 3/22
P. Lynch 2/22

Holy Cross 93/1
E. Smith 30*
S. Pickering 24
C. Ellis 29*

2nds (Arbo)
Holy Cross 2nd XI 139 (R Samuel 37; R Mowat 3-5)
Largo 2nd XI 140-8 (G Lohan 3 for not many but more than Bob Mowat).

Reports on the above matches (from Largo perspective)
http://tinyurl.com/6ksepmj

Admin adds: A brisk start against the Largo openers took us to 60-1 after about 12 and briefly sparked dreams of 200+. The introduction of slower change bowlers, notably the evergreen Bob Mowat, brought wickets and slowed the scoring so far that 100+ now looked good. Big hitting from Roshan (two 6s this week) made 150+ look possible before the last two wickets fell in two balls.

Vik and Roshan then bowled tight, accurate opening bursts before Gerry took three wickets in a typically skillful and miserly spell. With the opposition 60-odd for 4 and later 100-odd for 7 20 points looked on, but some sensible and spirited batting from the young tail saw Largo home. Certainly better than last week, especially the catching, but still much room for improvement. PS - nice to see Popey on a flying visit from Leeds.


3rds (Inverleith)

SMRH 3rds 177-8
Robin MacQueen 45, David Naper 32, Ewan Campbell 25*
Keith Geddes 2-30

Holy Cross 3rds 178-6 in 36.3 overs
Mike Nevin 39, Brian Fraser 31*, Ken Lawrie 25
Oscar Ball 2-32

...further details to follow...

Ones Washedout

2 weeks without rain....

1st XI match vs MDafs cancelled without a ball bowled....

Murrayfield Dafs won the toss against and elected to bat, but we never quite made it onto the field.

Matt the Kiwi puts shine on 3s performance but can't polish off DT's

The 3s made the short trip to Inverleith Park to take on Drummond Trinity 2s on the Artifical Track on the Slope.

Captain Ken elected to bowl first on what was a sun-drenched day in the Capital, ideal for BBQs in the Park!



Sharp and Geddes kicked off the bowling and despite some interesting bounces and missed opportunities (for opportunities read catches!), the breakthrough came in the 7th over when Khan was lured into a swipe by Sharpe and our ever alert keeper produced a quality stumping.



Both openers took further wickets, one each in the 14th & 15th overs, Geddes seeing off Nadi and Sharpe despatching McIntyre for a duck.



Kiwi Matt was unlucky not to claim an early scalp however Rent Boy Graham did manage to run out Hewitt from one of his deliveries. Nevin couldn't make the ball stick as it came to him at pace. Ellis and McGill came up with a trio of wickets each, with Russell & Graham being the support act on a number of occasions.



With the DT's all out for 156, it was off to Arbo for Tea and rumour had it that the 2s had munched CoCo's finest!!



Back to the Astro then and Ken and Mike took to the field with eager anticipation. Mike was first to fall. Not from having his wicket taken, but from a delivery that he took on the back whilst taking a swipe. After a few minutes to recover, the opener was bowled and despatched for 16.



In came Kiwi Matt Kennerley, in his third game for the Cross. Last week saw showers at Campbell Park, Thursday was a monsoon mudbath and today saw the sunshine. Kia Ora from Edinburgh! Matt had a booze cruise to go to so came in at 3 so he could have a shot at batting. After easing himself in, the runs were shortly to come and he lasted beyond drinks to record a decent knock of 35. By this point, Ken was back in the pavillion and Scotty was at the crease.



A decent partnership of 56 between the Belter (19) and the Kiwi saw the Cross head to 94 for 3 however when Kennerley was fingered by Nevin at 101, it all of a sudden didn't look so rosy!!

Coco and Ellis Snr were victims at the end of over changes and both were out with the score on 112. Now at 129 for 7, could the Cross snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?



Sadly yes! Despite the heroics of Graham & Sharpe adding boundaries to the score, it simply wasn't enough and when the tailenders of Din & Geddes were removed, a defeat is what the history books will record with Cross finishing on 135, short by 21 runs.

View all the pics on Broonster's Facebook

Cross reign in the rain against Stew Mel

Youngster Usama Shahzad stole the show in the rain affected clash at Inverleith, grabbing a 4-for on the artificial track against Stewart's Melville. Making his HX debut was Andy Williamson, a friend of Broonster and a return for Lytle for his first outing of the season.

The rain, which had put paid to the 1sts and 2nds games, held off long enough to allow Cross to dismiss their hosts for 61 all out. The aforementioned Shahzad took 4 for 22 in a fine bowling display which maybe could have been 5 had the umpire not adjudged his dismantling of McQueen's stumps to have been a No Ball.

Grumpy Geddes, who had remonstrated prior to the game that it 'was crazy playing in this weather and it's going to be a storm at 3pm', was slightly happier on two counts come the end of the innings. Having taken an exceptionally economical 3-11, he learned at the interval that Baby G had accomplished his first pee in the potty! Double celebrations then in the Geddes household tonight!

McGill picked up a brace for only 6 runs and Morcom got in on the act, taking a wicket for his troubles.

Facing a target of 62 to win, Cross went out with simple instructions - keep it calm and carry on!

Nevin done neither and was back sheltering under the trees after facing two balls. Surely the Cross couldn't make heavy weather of this in the erm, heavy weather?



Captain Ken came in to steady his ship and threw caution to the wind, batting well above his Coastal Erosion average and for the record, hit a 2 off his opening ball!! In an innings that lasted 16 balls, our Leader produced an unlikely 15 runs before being bowled.



Making a cameo appearance for the Cross was Irishman Willie Lytle and the bearded batsman knocked an impressive 18 out before succumbing to Tulloch's bowling. Young Miss Tulloch clean bowling Willie with an awesome delivery.





Cometh the day, Cometh the McGill! Coco's unbeaten 22 put Cross level and perhaps it was cruel that the winning run came off a bye - but that's the way it goes!



So, a win for the Mighty 3's who were singing in the rain. A big thanks to Simon, Charlie and Smudger who popped over from Arbo to watch, umpire and substitute field.

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