Alps 106-5 (25 pts) beat Crow Road 102 all out (4 pts) by 5 wickets.
Match played at The School Ground, Glasgow on Saturday 14th July 2007 at 13:00.
Brunton Miller Western Union Division 5, 100 overs.
Toss won by Alps, who elected to field.
As the clouds parted, revealing an undefined big yellow ball, a gritty and spirited Alps side, followed through their run chase of 100 to secure a further 25 points for their league tally.
Let There Be Light
Following heavy downpours in the early hours of Saturday, the keen Alps line-up was surprised to find themselves on the field at the School ground. Nonetheless, the squadron, with birthdays spanning over many decades, got down to business, setting the tone convincingly when Welshie off-spinner Haydn Gleed enticed one Crow Road opener into lofting the ball to mid-off, and the very safe hands of David Barr.
There followed one of the few decent partnerships of the match, but Matt Sullivan, playing his second entire match for the club, soon put an end to that, quickly totting up a three-for with his who-knows-what-spin.
Having been dropped from the twos, fifth-choice bowler, and promising young leggie Corrie Dick took his chance and soon took three wickets of his own.
Haydn came back on to break the second 28-partnership and register his 25th wicket for the 3rd XI- well played Haydn!
Minor Collapse… No Problem!
Following the ritual stuffing of faces, openers Ross Beattie and George Paton strode onto the field of play- truly not a batsman’s track- with some level of confidence and composure.
The assigned pair, supported by a very drunk first/second eleven combo got off to a slow start, making well over the required rate of [whatever 100 divided by 57 is- I can’t find the calculator on my computer, and real ones are downstairs] however, from the first delivery.
43 runs later, Ross Beattie unfortunately lost his wicket when he chipped the ball to extra cover- this started a minor collapse involving David Barr, latecomer Farhaj Siddiqui, Prem Kumar and George himself. This stimulated the sweat glands of the Alps brows somewhat.
Nonetheless Matt Sullivan and George’s excitable son Ross finished the job off, denying C Dick a bat on his first match back from Menorca.
Summary
Alps looked far more competitive than usual, and it paid off. Not a flawless performance, but so what!
Oh… and the eternally factual cliché: catches really do win matches!
Coz