West Lothian Cruise into the Semi-finals | 075.shtml

West Lothian Cruise into the Semi-finals

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West Lothian Cruise into the Semi-finals

West Lothian v Falkland, Scottish Cup Plate

Boghall, Linlithgow

David Potter

13 July 2003

West Lothian put their poor league form behind them to comprehensively beat fellow SNCL Second Division Falkland to march into the semi-final of the Coronel Scottish Cup Plate by 6 wickets.

On a lovely warm sunny day, ideal for cricket, Falkland won the toss and decided to bat on what looked a beautiful batting strip. James Jackson and Steve Rowley opened the batting and found runs hard to come by due to tight bowling by Baxter and Williamson and with the score on 14 Baxter struck clean bowling Jackson for 13, Williamson soon also got into the act when he bowled Rowley for 4 and the visitors were 18 for2.

David Gray seemed to be comfortable against the home attack, however the introduction of Jamie Smith induced him to play a loose shot and he was caught by Kevin Smith the bowler's brother and it was 30 for 3.

Ashley Russell the Falkland Overseas Amateur and John Jackson a former Scottish Youth Internationalist, just returned from Cambridge University, set about repairing the damage , which they did by playing some lovely shots and they took the score onto 103 before Russell became the first of Raven's three victims when he was trapped in front of the stumps and given out lbw in the 28th over.

At this point a large score looked a distinct possibility, however poor shot selection and a brilliant stumping by veteran keeper David Fleming to dismiss his counterpart saw the visitors restricted to 164 all out in the 47th over, which seemed at least 50 runs short.

After tea Falkland hit back in the first over when Raven was clean bowled by Sager and it could have been 2 down however Russell failed to take the chance offered by Fleming in the gully when the score was 17. Hw made the most of his good fortune and went on to score 56 which included 9n fours.

Graeme Watson changed his bowlers around to try and make a breakthrough and Norris after hitting Rowley for 6 was out the same over bowled by him for 28. Sager was brought back into the attack and his second delivery saw Russell take a catch in the gully and the home side were 112 for 3.

Williamson with the assistance of Johnston and Dixon saw West Lothian home to win easily by 6 wickets with 15 overs to spare. Falkland can have no complaints with the result as they were outplayed on the day in all departments by the home side.

West Lothian v Falkland
13 July 2003
Boghall
Coronel Scottish Cup PLate 2003
Result: West Lothian won by 6 wickets
Toss: Falkland

FALKLAND
James Jackson b Baxter 13 S Baxter 10 1 32 1
S Rowley b Williamson 4 A Williamson 8 4 22 2
D Gray c K Smith b J Smith 5 J Smith 8.4 3 13 13
A Russell lbw Raven 60 C Johnston 8 0 33 0
John Jackson lbw Smith 39 M Norris 3 0 15 0
P Watson* c Norris b Raven 11 A Raven 9 0 44 3
R Hepburn run out 4
B Watson lbw Raven 0
S Brown+ st Fleming b Williamson 9
M Morris not out 2
S Sager c Woods b Smith 1
Extras (b 0, lb 5, nb 11, w 0) 16
Total (10 wkts, 46.4 overs) 164

FOW: 14 18 30 103 132 145 151 151 163 164

WEST LOTHIAN
A Raven b Sager 0 S Sager 9.5 1 28 3
D Fleming*+ c Morris b Sager 56 R Hepburn 5 0 39 2
M Norris b Rowley 28 S Rowley 7 2 42 1
A Williamson not out 40 A Russell 7 3 18 0
C Johnston b Sager 15 B Watson 3 1 15 0
M Dixon not out 1 John Jackson 3 0 20 0
A Woods
J Smith
B Neilands
K Smith
S Baxter
Extras (b 4, lb 3, nb 22, w 0) 29
Total (4 wkts, 34.5 overs) 169

FOW: 1 59 112 163

Umpires: I Ramage, G Sutherland

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