2s Gain Vital Victory and put Hamilton to the Sword!

Hamilton were the visitors to Torrance House to play the EKCC 2nd XI. For East kilbride this was going to be a tough game with the previous encounter at Hamilton seeing East Kilbride crushed. However, the 2s knew that in order to avoid relegation, they needed to up their performance against teams of this nature instead of rolling over.

On winning the toss (a rarity!) EK Captain Nick Ralphs asked the opposition to bat first on a good bowling wicket with plenty of clouds in the air. It also allowed East Kilbride the opportunity to chase rather than set a total which over the course of the year has always proven to be the best course for us.

Taking the new ball, skipper Ralphs bowled magnificently, leading from the front. He combined the prodigious swing on show with plenty of seam movement, unerring accuracy and canny changes of pace to rip out the top 4 in no time and then come back and take two more wickets in his second spell to take a 6 for. He combined at times with Alan meikle who also bowled well despite being on the receiving end of some baseball shots from the Hamilton players. The slow bowlers and spinners were very expensive in their first spells, strugggling to come to grips with the wet conditions but in their second spells bowled far better to help bowl hamilton out for 201 in the 41st over, crucially gifting the 2s an extra 8 overs on top of the usual 50. Healy got (2-22) and Richardson although bowling beutifully was unlucky not to get a wicket with some pridigious legspin.

The extra overs proved crucial as the Hamilton players (with two exceptions) showed no inclination towards building an innings, instead as befitting the concrete haven they come from, they prefered to slog from the get go. This gave EK the extra time they needed to pace their innings and really meant they could restrict themselves to just high percentage shots. Opener Joel Richardson batted very well, playing the anchor role with a classy 41 before he was bowled playing across a straight ball. However, the star of the show was the number 3 bat, Ally MacDougall who batted with grit, determination and some amount of flair to score 75 (or 76 depending on who you believe in terms of leg byes!) not out and see East Kilbride across the line. He batted for a long time, patiently seeing off the good balls and puting the poor ones to the sword. His was a truly match winning innings. A special note must be given to the 15 year old Keiran Manchip, batted through to the end with Ally after coming in with EK on a bit of a wobble. He played some glorious cricket shots to make 12 not out, giving Ally the kind of support he needed.

This was an excellent win for EK, with the 5 wicket winning margin a fair margin for an improved bowling performance and some very clever batting. Crucially, the 25 gained points will help EKs bid to avoid relegation. However, there are still plenty of areas for improvement. Especially in the fielding, with 3 or 4 dropped catches and as many costly misfields although in this case not costing the game, could very well have on another day. Some hard work at training being the cure for that.

However, all in all, an excellent win.