Weekend Sport – Saturday 11th August. Cricket – 1st XI win

Stewart’s Melville CC 226 for 9 (50 0vers); Glenrothes 138 all out (35.3 overs)

There was one result we wanted on Saturday – a win to secure our East Premiership status. This we did by 88 runs, but it wasn’t all plain sailing.

On losing the toss, a rare event this season, not surprisingly we were asked to bat , however it produced our best opening stand of the season by some distance. Kyle McCallum with 49 and Greg Bissett with 42, batting with caution worked very hard to put on 95. Being in such a strong position in the 21st over, it all became a bit of a struggle. Several of our batsman found ways of getting out. Shaylen Pillay made a patient 29 and Steve Parker looking in good form made 18 before being run out. This week again we had a lively last wicket stand with Adam McHoul (24*) and Tom Hilton (9*) putting on unbroken 33 runs – a very vital contribution to help push our final total to 226 for 9. We were not safe at tea, but at least the task for Glenrothes was more challenging.

Glenrothes, in spite of their ‘no wins’ season to date, have batsmen who can score runs – indeed they have been very close to winning at least 4 games this season. Our bowlers stuck to their task – 2 early wickets helped. It took a while to shift their middle order, and 48 runs for the 6th wicket to take them to 131 showed they weren’t giving up easily. However, we moped up the lower order quickly and the celebrations were soon underway.

Saturday sees our last home match of the season for the 1st XI against Watsonians with a 12 noon start with a final match against league leaders Grange at Raeburn Place on Saturday 25th.