Royal London ECB under 15 County Cup
Northumberland v Scotland at Alnmouth & Lesbury CC on Thursday 12th July 2018 [Scorecard]
On winning the toss captain Tom Macintosh had no hesitation on deciding to bat on what looked like a batter friendly strip. It proved to be so & the visitors posted 260 all out. It should have been more but three run outs impeded progress. The innings was underpinned by a patient & fluent 81 from opener David Sturgess. He received good support from Jamie Cairns (69). When he joined David at the crease things were a shade fraught at 108 for 5 but their partnership of 74 steadied the ship. Lewis Robinson contributed a steady 25 in a partnership of 67 with Jamie.
Over ambitious batting towards the end of the innings meant the Scots did not use their full allocation of overs & a total north of 300 had been missed.
On the resumption of play it looked as though that failing would prove costly. With a good wicket where the ball was coming on and a lightning outfield the home side raced to 117 for no wicket in 16 overs. The introduction of Scotland’s strong spin line up stemmed the flow however & O Fletcher (51) & his opening partner T Robinson (60) were both out in quick succession, caught & bowled by man of the match Jamie Cairns. He nabbed the first four home batters at the cost of 43 runs.
The fall of these wickets led to good control from the spinners with Lyle Roberson returning 1 for 25 in 10 & Olly Davidson 1 for 36 in 10 as Northumberland fell behind the required rate.
A dangerous partnership from M Stewart (21 not out) & C Fletcher (31) kept them in the hunt but Aayush Dasmahapatra’s leg spin accounted for 3 wickets for the loss 29 runs and the home side ended 19 runs short.
The Scot’s could be reasonably pleased with their initial outing. They held their nerve when Northumberland were sweeping all before them, fielded well with some excellent catching. In the future they will need to use all their allocated overs by batting more conservatively in the early stages of their knocks and communicate better when running between the wickets.
Lincolnshire v Scotland at Scunthorpe Town CC on Friday 13th July 2018 [Scorecard]
Any superstitious Lincolnshire supporters will be regretting playing on a Friday 13th. There inexperienced side was blown away by Scotland in under 50 overs of play.
The home side on winning the toss, elected to bat, and were soon in trouble against aggressive bowling. The innings never got going and suffered from a lack of firepower, crawling to 95 all out in 33 overs.
Murray Johnson took 3 for 24, Lewis Robinson 3 for 11, while the spinners collectively bowled 20 overs for 27 runs. A feature of the Scots fielding performance was some excellent safe catching. While most of the grabs were regulation they still needed to be taken.
Despite losing two early wickets in reply, skipper Tom Macintosh raced to 56 not out from 36 balls & was supported by the steady Sam Elstone (13 not out off 24 balls). Tom drove imperiously and the target was reached in a mere 12.3 overs.
