Torrance House start season with win over Accies!

East Kilbride 2nd XI (Torrance House) welcomed Accies 2s (Anniesland) to fortress Torrance House to start their league campaign.

Accies batted first and steadily in the face of some resolute bowling by THs bowling attack of Nick, Stevie, Ifty, Shahid and new EK recruit Ziggy. Ifty got 4 wickets and was the star of the bowling card, however Ziggy confirmed his status as 1st XI bowler in waiting with a showcase of raw pace that at times was too quick for both batsman and wicket keeper (Dr Raj!) A few too many extras however, combined with far far FAR too many dropped catches (someone remind me what they win?) meant that Accies were able to post a score just short of 260. Although this was certainly over par, with a shorter boundary on one side and a pitch that was a credit to the groundstaff; it wasn't insurmountable.

To chase 250, everyone has to contribute with at least one or two contributing BIG. Now with that in mind - it certainly was not ideal when Alan Meikle got caught down the leg side and then Dr Raj was trapped leg before. An inauspicious start. However two East Kilbride debutants, Glenn Taylor and Adil Hussein steadied the ship. Playing straight and finding the balance between being positive and sensible beautifully. Glenn was out LBW and this threatened to see the wheels fall off but Adil was joined by David Gallagher who played very positively, lancing several sweetly timed boundaries through the offside if the bowler erred on line even slightly. Together with Adil, who was progressing serenely through the 40s and then past 50 - they put on just under a stand of 100 to make it advantage Torrance House. The game was still evenly poised when David got out. Nick Ralphs provided another fine counter balance to Adil to steady the ship again and take us to within sight of the finish line. When Nick and Shahid Mahmood got out, there were a few nerves. But Adil, who deservedly passed 100 on his maiden league appearance at East Kilbride made sure the result was never in doubt and in the end, EK ran out comfortable winners with 3 wickets (thanks to only 10 players) and nearly 10 overs to spare.

Great first performance with the bat - If work can be done to get the fielding in order to support the bowlers, then it wont be the only win of the 2nd XI 2017 campaign.

Big mention to Adil, who was unlucky in the week 1 fixtures to miss out on selection to the 1st XI. A chanceless, classy innings like he played is the perfect answer to such an omission and I very much doubt he will be on 2nd XI duty come week 2! He wins the Man of the Match award for this game. Well done.

Next week sees the 2nd team travel to Dumfries to take on St Michaels at Kingholm.