Scorecard

Edinburgh Uni Staff v Dunfermline and Carnegie Cricket Club 1st XI on Sat 24 Aug 2019 at 13.00
Dunfermline and Carnegie Cricket Club Won by 79 runs

Match report The final game of the season arrived. Sitting top of the League - we went into this game knowing a win would guarantee us the league title – but 7 points would guarantee promotion.

With second and third place Melrose and Hawick both playing games we expected them to win V Carlton and Peebles – we knew anything less than 7 points would see us staying in division 4 for another season.

We were facing Edinburgh Uni Staff – who have a knack of beating us in very close matches – with some needle thrown in for good cause.

The East League kindly allowed us to receive a neutral umpire for such an important game which would prove to take all the previous hostilities out of the equation.

We expected this game to be played at Peffermill where we would have been playing on a glorious batting track – instead however due to a Softball tournament taking priority we found ourselves playing at the Meadows – in front of a large crowd of around 1,000 or more on a hot summers day.

For this game we were missing a couple of regulars and a call off on Friday left us scraping around for a team – but Goody came to the rescue.

After winning the toss – Bruce chose to bat first on a green wicket at the Meadows.

With Spreng pulling out on the Friday – Martin Honeyford and Ralph Laing opened for us.

EUS opened the bowling with Jones and Vijayakumar. Neither had any real chances for wickets as the openers dug in on the green surface.

Martin showed his intent smashing a loose full toss for 6 – but apart from that if the ball pitched on the wicket it was hard to get the ball away. The grass in the outfield being long also meant boundaries and 2’s were going to be hard to come by.

The openers got to 37 when Laing was caught by Thorp of the bowling of 1st change Nagarajan.

Thorp had also joined the attack at this stage.

Justin Taylor joined Ralph and put on a couple of runs before Martin missed a straight one bowled by Nagarajan for a well grafted 22.

Next in was Mr Reliable – Vasu Reddy – who looked confident – but didn’t last very long – lobbing a ball up into the covers – caught by Jones of the bowling of Nagarajan.

This wicket was greeted with much celebration by EUS as they knew they had their man – and probably expected a collapse.

D&C needed now to dig in – with the score on 50 for 3.

Murray Callan joined Justin – and fired up almost immediately with a 6 but tried to hit another 6 which he missed and was bowled for 11 by Thorp.

Miller joined Justin with the score now 61 for 4. Both dug in before Justin lobbed the ball back to new bowler Allimuthu for a caught and bowled. Justin scored 8.

Cooper came in and showed some aggression – smashing a 4 and trying to rev up the run rate with some quick singles – but was run out by Sevak with a direct hit for 5.

Miller nudged along on the difficult surface and found the going tough – but did manage to start speeding the run rate up with the arrival of skipper Bruce Callan.

Bruce and played a captains knock – rotating the strike as he could as the pair put on a 45 partnership in under 10 overs to get the score up to 120. With the last ball of the innings Bruce ran himself out attempt a run when he had hit the ball straight to the bowler.

120 with Bruce scoring 13 and Miller 27 Not out.

We had no idea whether 120 was a decent score or not – but to get to it we had to grind in – and bat the 40 overs. Losing Vasu and Murray early deflated this score – as if one or both of them had got into full flow – they would have cut out the slow outfield and scored quickly – but it wasn’t to be today for either.

We now knew what we had to do – only 3 points in the bag out of the 7 required – we had to win – or at least get 7 wickets down.

We knew EUS have a good solid batting attack so we would have to bowl well to have a hope in hell of getting at the bear minimum of 7 wickets.

EUS opened the batting with two solid batsman who regularly score runs – Nagarajan and Hands.

D&C opened with Vasu – who bowled a first over Maiden (with the one and only bye conceded by Miller of the day).

On return from his third retirement – Keith Graveling playing his first game in 3 years opened and bowled like he had never been away from the game. With his 5th ball – Nagarajan fished outside off and guided a catch into the “safe” hands of Justin Taylor. Justin took the catch easily – but to onlookers we all thought he was going to drop it as he seemed to lost it in the air and made a movement back before snatching up the chance.

Excellent start 1 for 1.

Sharma came in for EUS – and some runs started to flow – at 8 overs EUS were on 17 – behind the run rate but wickets in hand.

Graveling bowled 6 overs 1 for 18 before being rested. Vasu bowled 4 overs for 5runs before his break.

Bruce Callen and Martin Honeyford came on and both made instant impacts.

Bruce’s 2nd legitimate ball – (3rd ball) swung away – Hands followed and glanced the ball towards third slip – Martin Honeyford at 2nd slip dived acrobatically to his right – to the vacant 3rd slip position and took one of the best catches of the season to dismiss Hands for 5.

EUS 22 for 2.

Martin came on and with his very first delivery dismissed Sharma – with Sharma gliding the ball safely into the hands of Taylor – yet again at Gully – Justin took this one with ease.

Sevek and Mopuri looked to rebuild – Sevak playing some lusty blows for 4. (3x)

Sevak always a vain in the D&C side – with scores over 50 on most occasions – didn’t like the Meadows track and blasted at a wide ball from Bruce which cannoned straight into the stumps – bowled for 13. We could now smell blood. The game was on.

The President – (Martin) then had Mopuri – trapped LBW for 0 – ball was hitting middle giving the umpire no choice.

Score was now 35 for 4.

Which came 36 for 5 when Thorp was clean bowled by an absolute away swinging peach by Bruce for 1.

Not to be outdone Martin clean bowled Ratnajarah for 1 and then trapped Jones LBW with no shot offered as the ball cut back for 0.

That was it – promotion guaranteed – 7 points in the bag – EUS floundering on 41 for 7.

It didn’t get any better for EUS as they were skittled for 41 – Vasu clean bowled Vijayakumar for 3 and James Honeyford who took the very first wicket of the season – came on to take the very last – clean bowling Subr for 0 with only his second ball of the day.

Allimutho was left stranded on 0.

This was an excellent day in the field. For the first time this season we didn’t midfield anything – we didn’t drop any catches – and we only gave the rare bad run scoring ball.

Martin Honeyford has to take the MOM award for this game. He set us off – batting sensibly to score 22 - then his fielding taking the breath-taking catch off Bruce’s bowling – before bowling superbly with figures of 5 overs 4 maidens 4 for 1.

All bowlers bowled well – but Martin deserves the plaudits.

Well done to skipper Bruce Callen who chopped and changed the bowlers as he saw fit – and it worked today – every bowler barring Vasu took a wicket in their first over – Keith 4th ball, Bruce 3rd ball, Martin 1st ball and James 2nd ball. Vasu to his credit did take a wicket with the first ball of his 2nd spell.

Batting wise we dug in – and got a score we didn’t think likely at one stage. The opening stand of 37 between Ralph Laing and Martin Honeyford got us off to a great start – the middle order then faltered before David Miller and Justin Taylor established some control – Bruce Callen and Miller then took us to the end with a 45 run partnership – with a score of 120 which as stated before we didn’t know if it would be good or bad. However, going by the EUS score – we would say it was good.

It turned out to be a lovely sunny day at the meadows – we had an enjoyable game of cricket – had a lot of people spectating – and asking about the game. We had a silent disco pop by for a bit of entertainment – Justin had to remove two sun bathers from the pitch prior to the start of the second innings – and we gained a fielder unsuspectingly when a man dressed all in green turned up in square leg. When asked what he was doing there – the Irishman said he just wanted to join in!!

Great win – and probably the best ground out and bowling and fielding performance of the season. We gained promotion on our own merits - and didn't need to rely on other results. As it turned out both Melrose and Hawick lost - so we didn't even have to play!!

Dunfermline and Carnegie Cricket Club 1st XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
7nb 5w 3b 5lb 
for 7 wickets
20
120		        
Martin Honeyford b Nagarajan 22 2 1 1
Ralph Laing ct cThorp bNagarajan 7
Justin Taylor ct c&b Allimuthu 8 2
Vasu Reddy ct c Jones b Nagarajan 7 1
Murray Callan b Thorp 11 1
David Miller Not Out  27 2
David Cooper run out Sevak 5 1
Bruce Callan run out Sevak 13 1
Michael Goodchild  
James Honeyford  
Keith Graveling  

Edinburgh Uni Staff Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Jones6.011400.002.33
Vijayakumar4.011100.002.75
Thorp8.0127127.003.38
Nagarajan8.041142.751.38
Sevak8.022200.002.75
Allimuthu4.0017117.004.25
Subr2.001000.005.00

Edinburgh Uni Staff Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 1w 1b 4lb 
for 10 wickets
7
41 (23.2 overs)		     
Nagarajan ct cTaylor b Graveling 0
Hands ct cMHoneyford b BCallan 11
Sharma ct cTaylor b MHoneyford 5
Sevak b B Callan 13
Mopuri lbw M Honeyford 0
Thorp b B Callan 1
Vijayakumar b Reddy 3
Ratnarajah b M Honeyford 1
Jones lbw M Honeyford 0
Subr b J Honeyford 0
Allimuthu  

Dunfermline and Carnegie Cricket Club 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Vasu Reddy5.03515.001.00
Keith Graveling6.0118118.003.00
Bruce Callan7.021326.501.86
Martin Honeyford5.04140.250.20
James Honeyford0.20010.000.00