Senior Academy Festival: 12-14 August 2009

This year's Senior Academy Festival was held at Stirling County Cricket Club with the three regional academies taking part along with Northumberland who had been invited as special guests.

Day 1 of the tournament was delayed as the previous two days of non-stop rain had left the groundsman with too much work to do prior to the 11 o’clock start. When play did eventually get under way, both matches were reduced to 40 overs per side, with Western Academy playing Eastern Academy on the main square to leave Northumberland to play Caledonian Academy on the top pitch.

Western batted first and reached a respectable total or 210/6 off their allotted 40 overs, thanks mainly to Sam Page’s 97, J Cook's 40, and Niall MacLeod’s 33. With Eastern needing 5.25 an over from the start it was going to be an interesting run chase. Tom Barrett hit a well constructed 52 and was supported by S Mullins who was out for 29. With the introduction of Shreyas Chitnis, he was to put any fight back from Eastern on hold as he took 6-36 in only 6.4 overs, leaving Eastern Academy all out for 146.

Caledonian Academy posted 154/6 against a Northumberland attacked who bowled tightly throughout and stuck to bowling line and length. Scott Weir hit a patient 47 with Freddie Cox adding 46 they were the main scores for Caledonian Academy.

At 30-5 the Nothumberland innings looked like it was heading for an early finish when Stanley Shillington blew away the top order and finished with figures of 4-16.  Thanks to sensible batting from J Jessop and Sachin Brar the Northumberland total crept towards the finishing line, Jessop was out for 18 and with a lot of work still needed to be done Jamie Guy was the perfect partner for Brar. Guy finished not out on 37 and Brar was out just before the final runs were needed for a well made 72.

Day 2 fixtures saw Eastern Academy play Caledonian Academy on the main square with Northumberland playing Western on the top pitch.

Like the previous day Western batted first and found the Northumberland bowling as consistent as the day before. S Shinawari bowled with pace and bounce and finished with 3-23 from his nine overs and was ably supported by Sachin Brar who returned with figurers of 3-17. Western Academy struggled to get any momentum until the last wicket pair of S. McElnea and Harris Khan put on over 50 for the final wicket to take the Western score to 109. Northumberland batsmen were watchful and barely gave the Western bowlers and fielders a chance with a solid opening partnership. The game was eventually over when Northumberland finished on 110 for 3 of from 28 overs.

In the other game Eastern had the opportunity to bat first and against the impressive Stanley Shillington struggled early on to get runs on the board.  Shillington took 3 early wickets of Baker, Mullins and Bhopal with only Barrett reaching double figures out of the top 4.  Barrett made 23 before he was out and good contributions from the hard hitting Ricky Davidson (48) and with Kinghorn and Jones departing without causing the scores too much trouble the pressure was on the Eastern lower order to get runs on the board.  Thanks to good contributions from George Smith 45, Alistair Maxwell 31 and F Boyd’s 24 Eastern posted 208 before they were all out in the 45th over.

Three early wickets for Eastern saw Caledonian put on the back foot but a fantastic partnership between Andy Lewis and Freddie Cox put Caledonian Academy on track for their first win of the tournament.  Lewis finished with a hard hitting 79 and Cox with 49 leaving Salisbury, Plomer and Carnegie to see Caledonian Academy over the line in the 47th over.

The forecast for Friday was never good, but there was always hope that the weathermen had got it badly wrong - they hadn’t. Only six overs were possible on Friday and, with Northumberland having won both games, they were crowned champions! Sachin Brar from Northumberland was named player of the tournament after his all round performance with both bat and ball over the two games.

Thank you to all coaches, players and umpires who made the two days thoroughly enjoyable; the facilities at Stirling County proved conducive to good cricket being played.  Thanks to the club for hosting the event for the second year running - we might even return for a third year.