Honours even in Academy contest
Eastern and Western Academies came together at Uddingston this week for the first of hopefully many Inter-Academy two-day matches. Eastern captain Nik Hunt won a crucial toss and elected to bat on an outstanding batting pitch. He was to prove a major role in proceedings as Eastern capitalised on the perfect conditions.
Day One
After openers Peter Mounstephen and Scott Mullins both gave away their wickets after making positive starts, captain Hunt produced an exquisite innings, scoring an astonishing 181* from just 184 balls. He was ably supported at various stages by Ashi Tufail (partnership of 102) and James Hearn (partnership of 84), before youngsters William Edwards and Charlie Buchanan-Smith took Eastern over 300.
With 6pm rapidly approaching, the batting side declared on 353-7 from 82 overs, leaving a tricky 14-over spell for the Western Academy to get through before close of play. Tired after a long day in the field, Western’s Gregor Preston-Jones and Fraser Conn lost concentration and found themselves back in the pavilion after a hostile opening spell by James Hearn. Shreyas Chitnis and captain Sam Page steadied the ship and Western finished on 39-2 overnight.
Day Two
Play resumed with rain threatening on day two. Western batsman Chitnis edged opener Alec Sim to on-form keeper Fraser Boyd to give Eastern hope of bowling their counterparts out cheaply. However, a stubborn stand between Sam Page and Josh Rutnagur, helped by wet conditions for the bowlers saw Western creep back into the match.
Rutnagur eventually holed out to spinner Saif Azhar and, with the rain becoming heavier, the two sides took an early lunch with skipper Page on 61*. The predicted heavy downpour came during the lunch break and brought events to a close with Western on 127-4 from 44 overs, and thus the match was drawn.
Although two sessions were wiped out, both sides will have enjoyed the new experience and different challenges of playing two-day cricket. Hopefully more such cricket can be played in future seasons. It is rare in Scottish youth cricket that batting outclasses the bowling but, with Hunt for Eastern and Page for Western, the batters can be very happy that they made the most of an excellent batting pitch. Both sides will now be looking to prepare for the Academy Festival which takes place at Stirling in mid-August.
