Saturday 1st June

Heriot’s CC 152 all out (46.4 overs); Stewart’s Melville CC 153 for 5 (48 overs). Won by 5 wickets. Match ball sponsor – Ryden LLP

The was much celebration after the 1st XI scored an important league win over a strong Heriot’s side at Inverleith four days after losing to the same club in a T20 Masterton Trophy match. The history books were out again to see when the last league win occurred against Heriot’s – season 1990 to be precise but in mitigation in the intervening period we have been in the same league only in 1997, 2013, 2014 and 2017 and some of the scheduled matches fell to the weather.

After some pretty horrible weather in the preceding days the Inverleith ground staff did a good job in having the ground in a very presentable state for the 1pm start.

Heriot’s won the toss and chose to bat first which seems their preference these days. The top three in their order were the exact same that hit 346 against us at Goldenacre last season but on this occasion they were well contained by our bowlers so that in the twentieth over they were 55 for 3 with all the aforementioned gone to catches off the bowling of Shaylen Pillay, Ben Wilkinson and Hayden Sweet the first of these being an outstanding catch behind by Patrick Ritchie to remove Johann Potgieter off Shaylen’s bowling.

Stew Mel rotated seven bowlers and of these all bowled to three runs an over or less except Andy Wallace who picked up the last two wickets for 19 runs in 2.4 overs when the Heriot’s tail was pushing for runs. A pleasing aspect of the performance was not letting Heriot’s exploit the closing overs to a greater extent. Hayden Sweet 3 for 30 and Greg Ruthven 2 for 27 each bowled their full allotment of 10 overs.

Taking a line through our batting in chasing down 169 against Stoneywood Dyce at Inverleith three weeks ago there were hopes that we could do so again. Patrick Ritchie and Kris Steel had to face the difficult fairly quick opening period against our former player Elliot Ruthven and Joe Kinghorn-Gray who moved from RH Corstorphine for this season. Steel was out in the 10th over to Kinghorn-Gray and Ritchie in the 15th to the first change Michael Shean. Ben Wilkinson (42) and Shaylen Pillay (28) set up our response. There was some concern among home supporters when Elliot Ruthven removed both in close proximity during his second spell but after a slow period between overs 30 and 40 Hayden Sweet (21 no) and Greg Ruthven (26 no) stepped up the pace and stayed together to achieve a win in the 47th over which most East cricket observers would have deemed unlikely. All in all a great performance and well done.

View scorecard: https://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com/20190601HERIOTS.pdf

Tuesday 28th May

Heriot’s CC 164 for 3 (20 overs) ; Stewart’s Melville CC 137 for 8 (20 overs). Heriot’s won by 27 runs.

Heriot’s won the toss and chose to bat. Their openers South African Elnathan Meiri and occasional Eastern Knights player Peter Ross made their attacking intentions clear from the start scoring at ten runs an over throughout their thirteen overs together eventually hitting 5 sixes and 13 fours between them. The onslaught only ceased when Kyle McCallum, the seventh bowler tried bowled Meiri.

Thereafter Heriot’s continued to gather runs at a more pedestrian pace against both Kyle and Callum Steel adding just 34 more in the final seven overs so that restricting the final score of 164 looked like some sort of achievement and while demanding not completely beyond a team batting second on a good pitch.

In reply Stew Mel made steady progress but never matched the required run rate and after ten overs at 58 for 3 had lost our top three batsmen and still required 97 to win. Ben Wilkinson (17), Patrick Ritchie (22), Hayden Sweet (20) and Chris Hill (14) with some enterprising batting all scored at a run a ball or better so that a final total of 137 was reached without achieving the couple of really big overs that would have been required to snatch a victory. We hit two sixes and ten fours as against Heriot’s five and thirteen.

On Saturday the two sides meet again in the league at Inverleith.

View scorecard https://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-28-HERIOTS-STEWMEL-match-scorecard-1.pdf

Saturday 25th May

Stewart’s Melville CC 103 all out (37 overs); Arbroath 104 for 2 (17.2 overs)

After the exhilaration of Thursday’s evening T20 win at Myreside the 1st XI slumped to a defeat that was matched by the dismal weather – as the umpires walked to the square to take up their positions at the start of the match light rain began to fall and did so throughout the match without a break. The umpires were only of a mind that the weather was sufficiently poor to take the players from the field when Arbroath, batting second, were 13 runs from the win and still just short of the twenty overs required to avoid a no result. After a break of about twenty minutes the umpires determined that the rain had relented sufficiently to take the players back onto the field and reach the inevitable outcome.

As for the cricket itself captain Steven Parker won the toss before the rain arrived and elected to bat in circumstances where opening bat Kris Steel had been delayed by road closures in Edinburgh after a completing his day’s duties at Myreside. In the event Steven Parker opening in place of Steel and no 3 Ben Wilkinson one of our more successful batsmen this year were both out with the score in single figures. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals so that we were six down for 44 in the seventeenth over with opening bowler Euan Small taking 5 for 19 in his ten overs. With Shaylen Pillay on 27 and batting securely hope remained until he was bowled off stump by Daniel Salmond, nephew of former Scotland captain George, by a ball that passed the outside his bat and flipped in to take the off stump, 69 for 8. A minor recovery led by Kris Steel and Andrew Tetley took our final score to 103 but it would take early wickets when Arbroath batted to get into a contest. Former Scotland players Matthew Parker and Marc Petrie opened the batting for Arbroath and together with no 3, South African Hayden Laing, set about trying to force an early win as the rain continued to drift in. That was achieved comfortably apart from the umpires intervention when the win was in sight.

Looking for positives we had the introduction of 15 year old pace bowler James Gordon for his first senior match at this level and Andrew Tetley made a 1st XI return after last year’s illness. Also, thanks to today’s ball sponsor, Mark Coyle, all the way from Australia !

The season goes on and on Tuesday evening we play Heriot’s at Goldenacre in week 3 of the T20 Masterton Trophy. Next Saturday’s league match sees Heriot’s coming to Inverleith, 1pm start.

View scorecardhttps://www.stewartsmelvillecricket.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/25.05.19-Scorecard-Arbroath-v-SMCC-2.pdf