Scorecard

DHSFP XI v Forfarshire Cricket Club 3rd XI on Sat 19 Aug 2017 at 1pm
Forfarshire Cricket Club Won 68 runs

Match report Forfarshire 3rd XI 138 for 7
L Robinson 48, H Hardie 40, J Girolami 28; R Hopkins 4 for 8, A Ahmed 2 for 17
DHSFP's XI 70 all out
R A Hopkins 22, K Narayanan 5 for 13, A G Walker 4 for 16

Saturday 19th August 2017 saw Forfarshire 3rd XI making the short trip along the Arbroath Road for a local derby against the Heh Skale Hurricanes number 2 eleven.

Pre match arrangements were of the easy variety and somewhat unusually; no dramas were encountered for the rapid hop along the road. After serious thought, it was decided that Car Cakes were not considered necessary for the ten minute journey - but they will definitely be back on the menu for future longer away trips.

Upon arrival at the ground there seemed a dearth of home players; it was therefore encouraging to find home skipper Lindsay on site and he provided welcome confirmation that the match would proceed. The largely youthful visiting line up embarked on a warm up consisting mainly of catching - as the Hurricanes blew into the ground one by one with kick off time fast approaching. The two skippers went out and inspected the wicket. It was definitely of the well-used variety and didn’t look like it was going to be conducive to expansive stroke play. Clark called incorrectly once again – and his team were invited to bat first. In spite of the tardy arrival of some home players….the game started prior to it getting dark and it was Lewis and Harry who opened the batting. The home skipper took to the field with his playing jersey on inside out - which we thought was perhaps a new trend down Dalners way……..but it transpired this was merely a silly wardrobe mishap on behalf of the Heh Skale leader. Seems a bit of a waste of school fees when the FP can’t put his shirt on the right way around.

Some tight home bowling, a clearly tricky pitch and a slow outfield all combined to ensure that the scoreboard operators were not overworked in the early stages of proceedings. The slow scoring rate lead to some consternation among their younger team mates - however, the openers were diligently following very clear instructions from their captain to play with common sense and stout defence. Our guest scorer was revelling in the extensive display of high class blocking. A couple of youthful home bowlers came on and performed with distinction; but still no breakthrough came and former league bowler of the year Lindsay brought himself into the attack in search of the breakthrough. One might have expected him to be bowling earlier in proceedings and certainly in advance of the likes of Hopkins. The first wicket finally fell and Harry departed for a very well compiled 40 runs – a fine innings of good defence and concentration. Well done Harry. James arrived at the crease and after a couple of early scares as he adjusted to the pitch; he struck some nice blows on the way to 28 runs which provided some good impetus to the innings. Cammy came in at number four and stuck in well - when unfortunately Lewis was stumped two runs short of a well-deserved half century. This was also a good innings on a tough wicket and provided the foundation for the final total. Excellent Lewis. Morgan got an Adees special and Joseph came in on third team debut. He looked very much at ease and only fell when trying to hit out in the latter overs. This is a player of real promise and one to watch. Gavin played an interesting reverse sweep straight into backward point’s hands first ball and it was left to Kailas and Ross to maximise the final deliveries. The innings folded on 138 for 7 and the main target of batting the overs had been successfully achieved by the young batting line up. Run scoring was clearly difficult and it was felt that with a good bowling display this was a very defendable total.

Tea was laid out in the long room; from where it was collected and consumed on the verandah as normal. The Heh Skale have never really been among the favourites to win the Golden Urn; and once again they showed why. The tea certainly wasn’t bad……in fact it was quite nice…….there was just nothing exciting to grab the attention in the way that Freuchie pizza and Forfarshire tiffin does. Sandwiches ok, cakes ok, juice ok…..but a centre piece of a big bowl of crisps was never going to be Urn winning stuff….….and overall it was really just an ok tea. A major point of difference from previous seasons did come in the form of what can only be assumed was a job lot of doughnuts. Not sure if a Dundee doughnut emporium had perhaps closed down and cleared their stock…but there was certainly a substantial doughnut presence on offer. So all good on the tea front – certainly nothing bad – and plenty of doughnuts ( the majority of which were consumed by the home skipper) A creditable mark of 68 out of 100 was awarded by the adjudicator (perhaps an all time high mark for the home team?) and with one game remaining Forfarshire stay out in front of the Golden Urn 2017 race. Only Do’ocot Dynamos can now steal the trophy from Chef Dave...

Rain unfortunately fell from the sky to hold up proceedings and this delay allowed the now clearly getting larger home captain to have further more doughnuts. This was much to the amazement and amusement of the visiting captain and vice captain - who (conservatively) estimated that the former Division One bowler of the year had munched his way through eight doughnuts in 30 minutes. He leads in the 2017 Golden Doughnut challenge.

The rain thankfully went off and play commenced with Kailas and Gavin entrusted with the old new ball. Batting proved just as tricky for the Heh Skale openers as it had done in the first innings - and Kailas and Gavin shared a couple of wickets; with Gavin perhaps a tad unlucky not to pick up a second when Hopkins survived what appeared to be a fairly adjacent LBW call first ball. His survival could only be put down to the umpire having trouble with his eyesight due to a doughnut overdose.

Ted and Lewis came on to replace the opening pair - and the bowlers remained on top. Ted bowled very nicely and broke the back of the Hurricanes batting line up with an excellent return of 4 from 16 from 9 fine overs on the spin. Kailas returned to the fray to bowl superbly and ended up with very well deserved career best figures of 5 for 13. Superb! The home team were ultimately bowled out for 70 runs and a 25 point haul was earned by the Broughty Ferry outfit. This was a fine bowling and fielding display from the visitors – and indeed a fine overall performance in difficult conditions.

There were fine performances aplenty in the Forfarshire ranks, but the Man of the Match Award was given to Kailas for his excellent bowling effort and he was presented with a voucher for a pallet of sweet treats from Duncan’s Doughnuts.

With the game over the annual game of “Hunt the Heh Skale Team” took place. This is the game where the Heh Skale tell the opposition they will be having an after match beverage in a specific establishment – and then they go to another one leaving the opposition to drink alone. This year they came up with a new venue and advised the visiting skipper that a pint would be on offer if he visited the “bowling club”. Given there are lots of bowling clubs in Dundee this was clearly a red herring so the visiting skipper took a flyer and went to Malmaison instead……….where he had a nice cocktail (lager and lime) all alone before going home.

There is no game next week so the final road trip to Perth has to wait until the September month is reached. Let’s hope some late summer sunshine is in evidence…….along with a Golden Urn winning tea………and enough Car Cakes to allow an in car picnic to take place all the way there and back.

Forfarshire Cricket Club 3rd XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
3w 9b  
for 7 wickets
12
138		        
Lewis Robinson st Mohammed b Hopkins 48
Harry Hardie b Jennings 40 1
James (jnr) Girolami b Hopkins 28 2
Cameron Walker b Hopkins 6
Morgan Sargeant b Ahmed 0 1
Joseph Laing ct Lindsay b Ahmed 1
Gavin Lynch ct Braid b Ahmed 0
Kailas Narayanan Not Out  1
Ross Bailey Not Out  2
Clark McConnachie  
Gordon Walker  

DHSFP XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
A Ahmed9.021728.501.89
R Hopkins9.04842.000.89
N Chapman5.002500.005.00
J Amin9.013200.003.56
R Jennings6.0114114.002.33
C Bowen4.002200.005.50
D Lindsay3.001100.003.67

DHSFP XI Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 4w 8b 2lb 
for 10 wickets
16
70 (33.0 overs)		     
C Reid b Narayanan 4
S Mohammed ct Hardie b Narayanan 3
J Amin ct Sargent b Walker 6
N Chapman snr b Lynch 1
R Hopkins Not Out  22
J Braid ct Girolami b Walker 9
C Bowen b Walker 6
A Ahmed ct Girolami b Walker 0
D Lindsay b Narayanan 2
R Jennings b Narayanan 0
N Chapman b Narayanan 1

Forfarshire Cricket Club 3rd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Kailas Narayanan8.001352.601.62
Gavin Lynch6.02515.000.83
Gordon Walker9.021644.001.78
Lewis Robinson6.001900.003.17
Harry Hardie4.01700.001.75