After a heavy downpour in Dollar at about 11am on Sunday morning I feared the worst that the game would be called off and I’d be spending the afternoon decorating the lounge! I received a text at 11:30 and my heart immediately sank as I reached for the paintbrush. Fortunately for me it was an offer from O2 and not the expected text from Buck, (phew!) so I downed tools and I joined the lads in the Kings Seat for the wee jaunt down the road to Loch Leven Larder for the return fixture against Kinross.
When I arrived at the pub we had a team of 9 for the match and with some gentle persuasion from Buck, Georgie managed to get out of his pit to join us, such is the team player he is, and we were on our way! The undulating ground is in a great location near enough on the banks of Loch Leven which means there is a constant breeze flowing over the ground. Even in August this meant that most players took to the pitch in a long sleeved jumper, Scottish cricket at its best! After a discussion between team captains (don’t think they had a coin!) it was decided that Dollar would bat and Buck opened the batting with ‘Swansea Michu’ Skully. On his very first delivery, Swansea got a leading edge which unfortunately for him went straight to the fielder at square leg and the lad took a regulation catch. That brought me to the middle and with the pitch playing very slow it was a case of staying in with Buck for a few overs and trying to keep the scoreboard ticking.
Buck and I managed this well against their junior attack as was the concentration that neither of us wanted to get out to the young lads that we soon passed the 50 partnership. For only the 2nd time this season I made 50 and retired which brought Cammie Glasgow to the wicket. Cammie set out with great intent smacking the ball all round the ground but hit one in the air and got caught for just 7. With Buck retiring this brought George ‘of the jungle’ Buchannan-Smith and Darwin ‘DD’ Douglas to the crease in quick succession. Georgie played with his usual aggression and showed no signs of the previous evening’s frivolities spent in Dusk in Stirling and quickly moved onto 38. Darwin also smacked the ball around as the lads accelerated the scoring in the final few overs of our innings. Darwin was caught trying another of his skyward attempts for the boundary and this brought his younger brother Toby to the crease. With the final over being bowled Alan ‘Turkish’ Douglas decided enough was enough and took his pads off, eager for his tea. Unfortunately for ‘Turkish’ Georgie was caught at cow corner trying to replicate a 6 from the previous over and he had to rush to put his pads on to face the final ball of the innings. Alan ended up with a strike rate of 100 and added one to his average from his only ball faced and we made a great total of 183 for 4 from our 30 overs.
Tea was taken ‘al fresco’ under the gazebo and as we needed Cammie as a bowler, I donned the wickie gloves and after one too many angel slices we made our way into the field. As we had made such a good total we opened with a mixture of youth and experience with Cammie bowling up the hill and Darwin coming down the hill and both bowled good opening spells but unfortunately couldn’t get a breakthrough. ‘Turkish’ was the first to strike bowling their opening batsmen and that brought one of the youngsters out to the wicket at number 3.
This brought Toby Douglas and Tom ‘Taliban’ Hall into the attack but neither could get the wee lad out, such was his Boycottesque digin innings, and it took his partner to run a suicide single for us to dislodge him. Their opener retired with 50 and we then had a game on our hands as the 2 guys at the crease began to accelerate the scoring. Gregg ‘del monte’ Dunsire bowled 2 tight overs then Buck gave him the ball for a third. Unfortunately for Gregg, the resulting third over went for 24 runs and this brought Kinross right back into the game and I for one was starting to get nervous! We dislodged their danger man after Buck brought himself on and he hit it straight down the throat of bucket hands Douglas. Georgie came on at the other end and quickly got rid of another Kinross batsmen but the game was still tight. The Buchannan-Smith father-son combo did its job and put the game to bed and with Kinross needing 17 off the last over we had nearly done enough. A tight final over from George saw Dollar CC win by 12 runs extending our unbeaten run in the Sunday fixtures!
Our next game is on Sunday against Gargunnock but before that we are going to have an early net session on Wednesday so we can get down to the clubhouse in time to watch England v Scotland.
Fred