The 1st X1 took on last year’s League Champions Heriot’s on Saturday at Inverleith in the East Premier League.   Heriot’s won the toss and chose to bat.

After 33 overs the visitors were 93 for 5 having lost all their top order bats including star import Hayes van der Berg for 1 caught behind first ball of the second over bowled  by Tom Hilton.  Tom finished with 5 for 50 off 9 overs while Greg Ruthven in helpful conditions for his spin took 2 for 31 off ten overs and Hayden Sweet 1 for 33 off 9 overs. Pro Shaylen Pillay was our most economical bowler with 0 for 26 off 10 overs.  Remarkably Stew Mel in their reply had exactly the same score after 33 overs having recovered from the loss of four early wickets with Kris Steel (37) and Mikey Miller (46) plus extras (20) contributing the bulk of the runs. The strength of Heriot’s lower order told however achieving a final score of 214 for 9 while Stew Mel subsided to 118 all out in the 43rd over.

The positive was seeing Mikey Miller among the runs again. In Heriot’s innings Ryan Brown top scored at no 6 with  51 off 69 balls and was well supported by no 7, ex Edinburgh CC player, Qasim Ashraf with 18 off 31 balls and no 8 Sean Weeraratna with  22 off 14 balls.  Our former player Elliot Ruthven was listed no 11 for Heriot’s and didn’t get in.  There was no equivalent late order boost to the scoring from Stew Mel so no points from the first two matches against the two top teams of last year.

Ryden LLP were the sponsors for the day and the tea provided for the teams was great – probably the best feature of the day !