Scorecard

Perth Doo'cot 2nd XI v Forfarshire Cricket Club 3rd XI on Sat 21 Jul 2012 at 1pm
Forfarshire Cricket Club Won 5 wickets

Match report
2012 – The year of the downpour...

Thankfully Saturday saw the rare appearance of the sun and ground conditions dried out sufficiently to allow games of cricket to take place. For Forthill 2nd XI that meant a trip along the banks of the Tay to Perth where we locked horns with Perth Do’ocot XI. This was another “three team Saturday” for the club and with numerous players absent for a variety of reasons it was a very young side that gathered at Forthill. The squad was so young in fact; that only two players were over the age of 18.......and no fewer than seven players were aged 14 and below.......

This lead to some potential issues with transportation, umpiring and scoring duties and our thanks go to Morgan’s Dad for help with the lift up and to Dick for help with both transportation and umpiring. We would have been lost without you... Without your help we would have had to hire a rowing boat and scoot up the Tay that way. Thanks also go for Dave T for his herculean efforts midweek when handling call offs from higher teams which impacted on our squad. His phone blew up again through overuse and we are having a whip round to get him a new handset. The things Dave will do to avoid looking out his whites are nobody’s business...!!!

Sim senior and Sim junior had opted to travel and watch the Open golf at Lytham this week; and the players discussed the fact that no one had seen them on the TV coverage over the previous days. One youngster suggested that this was because the TV cameras tend to concentrate on the golf course and not the burger vans.......

With the Sim twins absent Clark was pushed into the captain’s role. He tried to reverse normal protocol by going out to toss with his shirt tucked in, shoe laces tied and calling heads. This seemed to do the trick when he won the toss (the first Forthill 2nd XI captain to do so since 2008) - and he invited the home team to use the surprisingly good looking pitch given the monsoons that lashed Perth in recent days. Christian and Craig opened the bowling and did well to subdue the home openers and with some good support in the field from the youngsters this was a good start. The youngsters even dished out some chat, however anyone who can suggest a replacement for the phrase “all swing and no ping” which was repeated ad nausea to every play and miss should contact the club immediately.

Things got even better when Christian took two wickets in two balls and this brought the dangerous Le Roux to the wicket to face the hat trick ball. Normally in these circumstances the batsman tends to be happy to defend his wicket; however Le Roux took an almighty swing and despatched the ball down to the deep mid wicket area to the surprise of everyone.... We had witnessed this batsman’s hitting power earlier in the season, however Morgan came on and bowled Le Roux with his first ball of the day which was a bonus. Morgan proceeded to bowl a very good spell of off spin bowling which was great to see and congratulations go to him. Blair also came on with his leg spinners and also bowled a great nine over spell which augurs very well for the future.

At this stage the Forthill boys were doing well and sticking to the task and one of our two permitted over age players (Bryce) came into the attack and bowled seven consecutive accurate overs. Then with his face like an over ripe tomato, a call for oxygen and the sweat coming off his forehead possibly going to flood the pitch - he was removed from the attack for his own safety......

Murray played some lusty blows towards the end for the home side but the visitors hung in there and in spite of Clark bowling his first two overs of the 21st century at the end – the final total was restricted to 169 all out. This was a great effort by the Forthill boys and the young lads did well to hold their concentration for the full duration. Calum kept wicket very well and Conor, Cameron, Jack and Andrew all fielded well throughout. The bowlers all did a great job.

With two games going on at Doo’cot it was tempting to turn left at the top of the stairs at tea time – where there seemed to be a veritable feast waiting to be scoffed. The piles of cakes were massive, there seemed to be little salad bowls on hand and overall it looked very appetising. However it became apparent this was the first team’s plentiful table. This was made evident from the sign on the door which read “First Team Grub – Keep Oot” Unfortunately we were ushered into the right hand room where one could only presume the Do’ocot Park first team leftovers were spread over the tables. Sundry egg sandwiches and a custard cream mountain seemed to be the general fare on offer and the adjudicator suggested that maybe we should have stopped at the Rossie bakery on the way up after all and picked up some Faf Donuts. Matters were not helped by first team off spinner Ted sitting at the head of the table scoffing what he could lay his hands on and sipping tea like he was Lord Do’ocot. He wasn’t even playing of course... The drinks available were well stewed tea which was to the senior player’s liking – and for the young lads a brown coloured juice which most of them passed on...... The adjudicator settled on a three out of ten mark; but in all honesty it could have been considerably lower.

Under nourished, we ventured out for the second innings and set off in pursuit of an unlikely win.

We opened with two 14 year olds in Christian and Cameron and they both did well to preserve their wickets and see off the new ball. Cameron was first to go, but he showed that he has tons of promise and is becoming a real prospect. A check with the gene society is perhaps required to see where this batting prowess has come from. Clark joined Christian and the two took the score up to 120 and an unlikely victory started to come into view, however Clark was pouched at mid on and the game was back on. Craig joined Christian and started to put pressure on the fielders with some aggressive running and he and Christian were scoring at the required rate before Christian unfortunately holed out to mid off. This was a tremendous innings of skill and concentration from Christian and he had taken his team within sight a victory. Well played Christian.

Bryce entered the fray having once again cleared out yet another player viewing area..............and hit some fine blows and Craig had found a willing partner in the quick single stakes ......however with the winning post in sight Craig smashed one to extra cover where the chance was well pouched. This brought young Calum to the crease and he played a nice looking pull shot which unfortunately found square legs hands - and with three overs remaining 12 runs were still needed. The excitement on the boundary edge was reaching fever pitch and Clark had to change three sets of nappies whilst still trying to score when Conor joined Bryce He played a nice cover drive for a couple and Bryce then hit a fine extra cover drive for four which relieved the pressure. He and Conor then knocked off the runs needed and a five wicket victory was secured with an over and a bit to spare.

This was a tremendous effort by such a young side against an experienced Do’ocot outfit. Credit goes to the Perth men for a great effort with bat and ball and for playing the match in a very sporting manner. For the Forthill youngsters this was a great experience and the 25 points was a bonus. Credit to goes to them all for playing so well and also for their approach to the game. Special praise goes to Jack C and Andrew K on debut.

The man of the match award was a very difficult one; and on this occasion it was decided to award the nine under 18’s who were playing a joint award...........which is a quarter of jelly babies each courtesy of Asda.
The team happily made their way back to Forthill where the young lads went and had a net; and the older lads went and had a lie down in a darkened room...
The match was accompanied by some background noise from the Rewind festival at Scone and it made for some interesting listening for the older players. There were some interesting coincidences as well.....
When we arrived at the ground 5 Star were belting out “Rain or Shine”
As the home skipper was adjudged caught behind; Jimmy Somerville was belting out “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
When big Henrick Le Roux swung across the line and was bowled by Morgan, at the very same time Go West were on with “We Close Our Eyes”
When Christian and Cameron were going out to bat Sinitta was on with “Toy Boys”
As Lord Do’ocot was driving out of the car park Clive Dunn had just stared to sing “Grandad”
As the winning run was struck Simple Minds were firing out “Promised you a Miracle”
And finally, as the boys were receiving their Man of the Match jelly beans Midge Ure was on with “Do They Know It’s Christmas Time”

Next week sees the visit of table topping St Modans to Forthill on Sunday; and hopefully the sun will continue its 2012 guest appearance long enough to let the game be played....




Perth Doo'cot 2nd XI Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
35w 4b 3lb 
for 10 wickets
42
169 (0.0 overs)		     
Riley ct  Garden b Robertson 10
Young ct  Garden b McConnachie jnr 39
Mishrakoti lbw  Robertson 0
Le Roux b  Sargeant 5
Kasi ct  & b Sargeant 3
Collins ct  Cannon b Walker 8
Murray ct  McConnachie jnr b Robertson 44
Anderson ct  B Robertson b McConnachie jnr 4
Pedgrift Run out  9
Bhutt lbw  McConnachie snr 3
Pennycook Not Out  2

Forfarshire Cricket Club 3rd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Craig McConnachie9.0141220.504.56
Christian Robertson8.4030310.003.46
Morgan Sargeant9.0220210.002.22
Blair Walker9.0026126.002.89
Bryce Robertson7.001700.002.43
Clark McConnachie2.0017117.008.50

Forfarshire Cricket Club 3rd XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 28w 4b 1lb 
for 5 wickets
36
170		        
Christian Robertson Run out  40
Cameron Walker b  Collins 10
Clark McConnachie ct  Murray b Le Roux 46 2 2
Craig McConnachie ct  Riley b Murray 8 1
Bryce Robertson Not Out  24 1 1
Callum Garden ct  Le Roux b Pennycook 0 2
Connor Wilson Not Out  6
Jack Cannon   1
Andrew Kelly  
Morgan Sargeant   1
Blair Walker  

Perth Doo'cot 2nd XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Pennycook8.3025125.002.94
Murray8.0126126.003.25
Collins4.0018118.004.50
Bhutt6.003800.006.33
Le Roux9.0122122.002.44
Mishrakoti8.003500.004.38