St Michaels 1st X1 at Kingholm - Western Cup
With a good mix of youth and experience, and players pushing for first team places, this looks like one of the strongest 2nd teams the club has had for a number of years.
EKCC 2nd X1 Torrance House
Away versus St Michaels at Kingholm 28 April 2012
Result St Michaels 181 for 9 wickets of 40 overs EKCC 2nd X1 168-8 of 40 overs
St Michaels win by 13 runs.
A strong EK second eleven made the trip to Kingholm in Dumfries to play St Michaels first eleven in the new format Western Cup.
The opposition finishing second last year in the WDCU Premership and are one of the favourites for the competition, Playing a first team of this quality would be a challenge.
EK won the toss and Skipper Alan Meikle asked St Michaels to bat. Andrew Kampman opened the bowling and was accurate in his 5 overs. At the other end Nick Ralphs removed the hard hitting opener and as usual gave away very few runs.
Joel Richardson then came on to bowl 10 overs of leg spin which yielded a couple of wickets. With John Hunter not able however to break a developing partnership in his 3 overs St Michaels were tidily placed at 100 for 3 with 12 overs remaining. The home team was starting to target the short boundary and with wickets in hand they upped the rate. Matthew Kellett took 3 wickets , off his 7 overs, but his first 4 overs were too expensive. Alan Meikle also nipped in with a wicket. With David Healy bowling accurately for 2 wickets in the final overs St Michaels finished on
181-9. A solid fielding and bowling performance against a batting line up with depth.
In reply a steady start from youngsters Joel Richardson and Gavin Meikle took the score to 25 before Joel was out LBW
This brought Alistair Dalgleish to the crease , looking for a score to push his claims for a first team position
In bright yellow helmet, he strode purposefully to the crease and calmly set about building an innings.
Gav Meikle was stumped for 23, and Nick Ralphs then scored a solid 30, as the score rose. When Nick departed Gareth Urqhart contributed some good hits, and the game was there to win.
Alistair reached 60 in a well crafted innings , but was caught on the boundary attempting to up the scoring rate with only 15 balls remaining, and with 25 still required it proved to much for Andrew Kampman , Alan Meikle and Gary Smith.
EK eventually falling short by 13 runs.
St Michaels taking the 2 points.
It was however an all-round creditable performance, against a strong first team. With a good mix of youth and experience, and players pushing for first team places, this looks like one of the strongest 2nd teams the club has had for a number of years.
Next Saturday the team take on Stenhousemuir at East Kilbride again in the Western Cup.