Weekend Sport – Sat 9th June. Cricket – second league win for 1st XI

Cricket:    Glenrothes      163 all out;  Stewart’s Melville CC   164 for 5.

On what became a historic weekend for Scottish Cricket (Scotland defeated England at the Grange on Sunday) our 1st XI secured what for them was a significant second successive league win against Glenrothes on Saturday.

In the absence of captain Greg Ruthven, Mike and Chris Miller and Kyle McCallum from the team that defeated Carlton last week, Greg Bissett missing last week, Mark Burgess, Euan Campbell and Calum Steel (brother of Kris) came in to the XI but our losses were compensated by Glenrothes missing their professional Safy Sharif in the Scotland team for the match against England.   In the event Glenrothes probably missed Sharif who has had some outstanding performances against us in the past more.

Stand in captain Stevie Parker won the toss and opted to field.   The Glenrothes innings of 163 in 41 overs was held together by Ben Wilkinson a former age group internationalist who scored a patient 68 on a difficult pitch.  Tom Hilton took 4 for 42, one lbw, two bowled and a caught behind with his pace bowling while Hayden Sweet with his off spin had 5 for 43 (four caught, one lbw).  Shaylen Pillay bowled his ten overs for only 15 runs without taking  a wicket.   Given our four batting absentees and a difficult pitch 163 seemed quite a demanding ask.   Hayden Sweet opened with a flurry of runs before being caught for 17, Greg Bissett went next for 15 before Kris Steel and Shaylen Pillay put on a further 70 runs when their partnership ended in bizarre circumstances – Shaylen being run out by the bowler breaking the stumps at the non striker’s end without releasing the ball.  49 were still required but with Kris Steel, living up to his surname, batting thro’ for 60 not out this was achieved with five wickets left in the 41st over.     The win lifts us away from the bottom of the league occupied by Glenrothes who remain without a win yet and, for the moment at least, one place above a pretty strong Watsonians side who have only one win to date – we play them on Saturday.