Youngs Twos Team lose agonisingly to Active Life

The twos travelled to Springburn on Saturday to take on the superstar filled Active Life Club. There was a distinct look of inexperience about this team, missing as it was, 6 regular choice players.

Losing one of his first tosses of the year, Captain Nick Ralphs was asked to bat first by ALC. Yet another new opening partnership strolled to the crease in the form of Meikle and Meikle (Or Meikle the old and Meikle the younger- whichever you prefer) and they put on a staggering 50 runs in the first 9 overs. Why staggering you may ask? Well in the first place because it saw Alan Meikle start creaming the ball off the square! But also because he was outscored by 14 year old Gavin who in one superb over, hit the star spinner Ali right out of the attack with some aggresive drop shots over midwicket. However, wickets fell and the scoring rate slowed (to a crawl at points). Contributions of in the 30s from Garry Smith and new boy Waqas Ahmed saw Torrance House reach a respectable if somewhat below par 191 in their 50 overs. (Remember we got creamed for 400 there not 3 weeks before!)

In order to make this a game, a particularly special effort was needed in the field and with the ball and the blend of youth and experience delivered in a spectacular fashion. Waqas opened the bowling in a fiery opening spell, giving the ALC batters a real going over. He then bowled 15 high quality overs, ripping out 4 wickets and together with David Healy (the author!) who bowled 10 tight overs to gain figures of 3-24, put Torrance House on the brink of victory. However, it was not to be as Active Life with but one wicket left, crawled over the finish line.

As has been said for a number of weeks now, there are plenty of positives to take from this game. The ground fielding with one exception (sorry Keiron!) was excellent. The catches when they came were taken. The bowling was tight and the batting was steady considering the number of batters missing. Not much more could have been done than was. That being said, the 2s are now in the bottom half of the table and face a dog fight to stay out of the bottom 2. The next fortnight sees games against Glenpark and Motherwell, two teams who EK simply must beat to stay in a comfortable position in the table.