Thursday 20th June

Stewart’s Melville CC 140 for 7 (20 overs); Edinburgh Academicals 99 all out. SMCC won by 41 runs.

The 1st XI cruised to a third win in this season’s Masterton Trophy competition against Championship side Edinburgh Academicals. Steven Parker on winning the toss chose to bat first and was rewarded with openers Kris Steel (19) and Ben Wilkinson (26) getting off to a high octane start taking eighteen runs off the first two overs and then past 50 before Steel was bowled by first change bowler Max Banks in the ninth over. The loss of a further two wickets in successive overs slowed the momentum of the innings until Steven Parker (23) joined Hayden Sweet (28) adding 38 runs for the fourth wicket off 33 balls, 100 for 4 in the sixteenth over. Andy Wallace (18) and Greg Bissett (8) kept scoring going so that the self imposed team target of 140 was attained last ball of the innings.

The first three Accies bats Andrew Cosh (13), Max Banks (23) and Omais Altaf (26) all made starts in taking the reply to 71 for 3 in the 12th over with the occasional lusty boundary hit but once they were gone the innings petered out as wickets were lost at regular intervals as they fell further behind the asking rate. Callum Steel took 3 for 9 from the eight balls he bowled as the innings was wrapped up in the 18th over for 99 and a 41 run win.

With three wins from five games we are challenging to qualify for a spot in the four team play offs with bogey team Corstorphine and Edinburgh CC still to play in the round robin.

View scorecard https://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-06-20-EDIN-ACADS-STEWMEL-match-scorecard.pdf