After five successful years Steven Parker has stood down as 1st XI captain and is replaced by Ryiad Henry who joined the club last year from Ferguslie following his appointment to the staff of Fettes College. Other changes include Adam McHoul succeeding Ewan Campbell as Secretary.

Greg Bissett continues as Cricket Club President and James Crispin as Treasurer.

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Friendly match : Stewart’s Melville CC 230 for 7 (40 overs); Edinburgh Academicals 234 for 5 (37.2 overs)

The 2021 cricket season at Inverleith opened on Saturday with a friendly match against Edinburgh Academicals. The 40 overs a side match was played under the Covid rules for cricket matches introduced last year. The Stew Mel side was more representative of the 2nd XI than the the 1st XI which it was labelled and despite an innings of 95 not out by Mark Burgess a total of 230 for 7 proved insufficient as Accies passed the score with 22 balls remaining with five wickets left. A second wicket stand of 166 between Max Banks and Omar Altaf after the early loss of captain Andrew Cosh set up Accies for a comfortable win.

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In 1886 former pupils of Stewart’s College induced the Merchant Company to lease for recreational purposes ground at Ravelston known as Honeyman’s field from the governors of Trinity Hospital at what is now the junction between Queensferry Terrace and Ravelston Dykes. In 1894 the Merchant Company acquired grounds at the present Inverleith before integrating Scottish Rugby’s next door “Union Field” in 1926.

Much more on this subject will appear in the club’s coming FP News.

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The Club’s AGM was held on Tuesday 21st January at Inverleith.

Lawrance Reilly continues as President with Greg Bissett continuing as Vice President. Steven Parker continues as 1st XI captain.

Other appointments:

Secretary – Bert Barclay; Treasurer – James Crispin; Captain 2nd XI – Adam McHoul; Captain 3rd XI – Sim Edgar; Captain 4th XI – Fraser Laidlaw.

Junior Convener – David Gibson; Child Protection Officer – Steven Kerr.

Committee – Michael Miller, David Sharkey, Euan Robertson.

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The weather for the last league game of the season was for maybe the first occasion as good as could ever be hoped for, sunny, hot and no wind to speak of.  Our visitors, Forfarshire, had secured the championship for the first time last week and seemed in celebration mode throughout  fielding their very strongest team.  No surprise then when Forfarshire won the toss and chose to take the opportunity of showing off their batting prowess.   To the surprise of the few onlookers  by the eighth over Forfarshire were three down for 27 runs, Chris Greaves, Roy Johnston and Umar Mohammed having fallen to Shaylen Pillay and Andrew Wallace.  Given their batting strength all through their line up the confidence of the visitors was not diminished and their middle order led by current Scotland star Michael Leask who piled up 128 runs (18x4s; 2x6s) for himself took their score beyond 300 before they lost their final two wickets being all out for 309 which ordinarily would look far beyond  Stew Mel’s capabilities.   To capture all ten wickets was an achievement in itself  but for the first time this season all four of our slow bowlers were scored off heavily.  Shaylen Pillay had the best figures with 2 for 25 off 8 overs, Andrew Wallace finished with 3 for 48 off 9 overs.

Facing such a large total there was disappointment among home ranks when the normally quick scoring Kyle McCallum was out in the first over to the pacey Scott Cameron for 2.  Greg Bissett and Kris Steel then held out against the visitors attack into the 16th over taking the score onto 36 when Kris was bowled by Umar Mohammed for 17 followed quickly by Greg Bissett out lbw for 14  to Brock Ditchman.  By then the required run rate was an unlikely 7.6 an over and while not achieving that there followed an excellent partnership of 88 in 102 balls between Shaylen Pillay and Hayden Sweet (45 with 4 fours), Shaylen went on to score 62 off 83 balls with 9 fours before eventually being seventh out lbw to Michael Leask’s off spin chasing quick runs with the score then on 172 with 3 overs left.   In a disappointing end to our innings we lost the last three wickets for the addition of only five more runs being all out when Sam Tait was comprehensively run out off the second last ball of the innings.  In truth we were never likely to match Forfarshire’s Leask inspired scoring rate which would have been beyond most teams in the league.

Our final league record was 3 wins and 9 defeats leaving us in ninth place for the third successive year but two wins better off than relegated Aberdeenshire.   We were perhaps a little unfortunate in that of our six no result matches five of these were against teams in the lower part of the league where we would have had hopes of success.   Reaching the semi-final of the midweek T20 competition including wins against Grange, Watsonians and Carlton was a pretty good outcome but the season will be most remembered for its miserable weather and the number of cancellations.

Till next season.

View scorecard  http://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Scorecard-SMCC-v-Forfarshire-24.08.19.pdf

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Saturday 3rd August

Stewart’s Melville CC 77 all out (27.4 overs); Heriot’s CC 78 for 5 (26 overs). Lost by 5 wickets. Ball sponsor – Colin Brown

After last week’s weather cancellation the 1st XI resumed their East Premier League campaign against Heriot’s at Goldenacre having won the first match earlier in the season.

Captain Steven Parker won the toss and chose to bat first despite having won the first match batting second. Kyle McCallum (18 runs) and Mike Miller (20 runs) started profitably against the pace bowling of our former player Elliot Ruthven and Joe Kinghorn-Gray, ex RHC putting on 30 runs before Kyle stranded out of his ground was bizarrely run out by Hayes van der Berg after he had failed to take an overhead catch at mid off. Ben Wilkinson followed caught low down in the same position off Kinghorn-Gray with the score on 41. Shaylen who replaced Ben at the crease started confidently the score quickly moving onto 63 before he was caught behind for 15 off the bowling Michael Shean who had replaced Elliot Ruthven. The slow bowling combination of Shean and Scotland and Derbyshire player Michael Watt then appeared unplayable on a helpful wicket as we slumped to 77 all out with five of our bats failing to score.

Photo – Mikey Miller plays forward

Given the success of Heriot’s slow bowlers we opened with Greg Ruthven and Hayden Sweet with Kyle McCallum replacing Sweet after one over. Heriot’s reached 23 without loss and seemed on their way to a comfortable win when the pursuit of runs against a turning ball resulted in a succession of wickets so that the score became 44 for 5 and Stew Mel hopes of achieving something special were raised. Hayes van der Berg and Keith Morton then chose to pick their shots carefully so that after 26 overs Heriot’s achieved the anticipated win leaving Stew Mel to wonder how many more runs might have tested the home side more. Greg Ruthven bowled his 10 overs straight off taking two wickets for just 20 runs with Kyle McCallum one for 17 off seven overs and Sam Tait two for 27 off 8 overs making things difficult for the Heriot’s batsmen.

We have three Saturdays to go in the league season with home games to come against Watsonians, RH Corstorphine and league leaders Forfarshire. Aberdeenshire remain in the relegation spot two wins behind us.

View scorecard http://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Scorecard-Heriots-v-SMCC-03.08.19.pdf

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Grange 262 for two (22 overs); Stewart’s Melville CC   162 for two (22 overs).   Grange won by 100 runs.

After heavy overnight rain Saturday’s league match was reduced to 22 overs a side starting at 4.35pm just 15 minutes before the cut-off by which time the ground was bathed in warm sunshine.

Steven Parker won the toss and elected to bowl, Grange opening with Scotland squad player Ollie Hairs only recently returned after several years down South and former Scotland bat Ryan Flannigan.   The first three overs produced 16 runs without loss before Hairs who favours “slog sweeps” both sides of the wicket “teed off” with 2, 4, 6, 4 off the final four balls of Hayden Sweet’s second over.  He continued in that vein for the rest of innings eventually scoring 179 not out off 81 balls with 17 fours and 12 sixes with only Shaylen Pillay and Andrew Wallace conceding less than two runs a ball from their bowling.   The highly thought of under 19 Scotland cap Tom MacKintosh batting at no 3 scored a fine 48 in more classical style with 5 fours and one six).   It didn’t go unnoticed that a very catchable chance was put down early in Hairs’ innings.

The Stew Mel response facing an impossible task was what in normal circumstances was to go along at very good rate of  seven plus runs an over with Shayle Pillay opening with Kyle McCallum reaching 53 not out while Kyle made 36 (3 fours and 2 sixes) off just 24 balls.   Ben Wilkinson at no 3 made 16 off 17 balls and Hayden Sweet 40 not out off 28 balls.   So Grange duly collected the win points in their pursuit of league leaders Forfarshire while we are still seeking the further league win that will probably ensure league safety for another season.

Before the match a minutes silence was observed by the players and umpires following news of the untimely death of Watsonian’s groundsman and former Warwickshire and Scotland player Willie Morton which caused the withdrawal from our side of his Myreside colleague Kris Steel.

View scorecard   https://smcfpclub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019-07-20-GRANGE-STEWMEL-match-scorecard.pdf

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The Cricket Club’s 1st XI suffered the disappointment of a last over defeat in last night’s East of Scotland’s Masterton Trophy T20 Competition at the hands of RH Corstorphine at Barnton last night.

Batting first in a match reduced to 17 overs a side by some heavy rainfall before the scheduled start time Stew Mel scored 89 for 9 in their 17 overs with RHC passing that that total on the fourth ball of the last over with nine wickets down.    RHC’s professional Mohammed Saad batted throughout their innings for 61 not out with no one else scoring more than five as wickets fell regularly.

While it was disappointing to come so close and be denied the win there was satisfaction that in the course of the competition wins had been achieved against Watsonians, Grange, Edinburgh Accies and Edinburgh CC in the group stage and against Carlton in the quarter-final match.

A full report appears on the Cricket Club website http://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com

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