Saturday 22nd June
Stewart’s Melville CC 208 for 8 (50 overs); Forfarshire 211 for 3 (41.3 overs). Forfarshire won by 7 wickets. Ball sponsor – Dr Ian Adam.
The 1st XI took on unbeaten league leaders Forfarshire at Broughty Ferry on a day when the sun shone and in front of a noisy crowd of about 300 enjoying the home club’s Food and Drink garden party with a musical accompaniment from the large marquee imported for the occasion.
In the end Forfarshire won comfortably but Stew Mel performed commendably with three batsmen posting half centuries batting first after captain Steven Parker won the toss. Kyle McCallum (55) 9 fours, Ben Wilkinson (51) 4 fours, 2 sixes, and Shaylen Pillay (65) 2 fours, 1 six, took the game to the opposition despite aggressive bowling from Forfarshire’s opening bowlers Bryce Allchin and Scott Cameron and 28 overs of disciplined spin bowling maintaining a scoring rate of about four runs an over throughout on an excellent surface.
Kyle McCallum
Ben Wilkinson
Given Forfarshire’s previous batting exploits this season the final total of 208, good as it was, was not enough to frighten the home side and after Shaylen removed young opener Jack Hogarth with the score at 37, Craig Wallace, younger brother of our Andy Wallace, and a current Scotland regular and their captain Umar Mohammed took control of the game going along at about five runs an over without ever looking anything less than assured at the crease until a sharp throw from Shaylen took out the middle stump at the far end with a direct hit running out Wallace going for a second run.
Having taken the score onto 183 by that time it had become a question of when the Stew Mel total would be passed. There was a further success of sorts when Forfarshire’s other current Scotland player Michael Leask was caught on the boundary by Callum Steel from Hayden Sweet’s off spin. That encouraged brief hopes that we might extend the match beyond 45 overs and into bonus point territory but that was not to be as Forfarshire finished things off in the 42nd over with Mohammed still there on 73 not out.
Consolation came early with the news that bottom of the league Aberdeenshire (one win to date) had been bowled out for 45 by Carlton who required only 12 overs to complete the win. Aberdeenshire come to Inverleith next Saturday which becomes a season defining match for the 1st XI.
