This week’s indoor 6-a-side fixture was against Callander CC. This was a must win game if we wanted to keep our chances of winning the title alive! The team of Stuart, Craig ‘Craig Smith’ Smith, Fox, Tom, Alan Douglas and I congregated at the academy eager for the match ahead!
For the first time this season I lost the toss (lousy tosser!) and we were put into bat by CCC. Our innings started strongly thanks to Fox, majestically stroking the ball to all parts of the hall whilst I provided back up at the other end! Unfortunately a faint nick behind and a great catch down the leg side from their keeper saw me depart in the third over. In came Craig ‘Craig Smith’ Smith for his 2014 debut for DCC. Craigy batted (or should I say, ran) well with Fox even if it was hard to slow him down after a quick single (think we’ll need an anchor for the outdoor season!) and we were progressing nicely at over the required 13 per over for maximum bonus points. Craigy then got caught and soon after Fox made it to his retirement total of 25. This brought Harold and Alan to the crease. Alan did his best to replicate an innings Geoffrey Boycott would have been proud of leaving the odd ball and defensively playing others but soon departed LBW struck on the back foot just above the laces. This brought in Tom to bat with Stuart. We were still only 6 overs into our innings but already had scored a lot more than the previous week against Doune! Tom was also caught after a couple of great shots into the wall and some good running between him and Stuart. Fox came out to join Stuart and started out attacking the ball trying to maintain our impressive run rate. Unfortunately this didn’t last long and he was caught and after only 7.3 overs we were all out for 101.
After achieving over the required 13 runs per over for maximum batting points our next aim was to win the game and bowl CCC out. Fox made a great start conceding only 1 run in his first over but neither him , nor Craig ‘Craig Smith’ Smith could break the opening partnership, even though they had only scored 6 runs. I brought myself on in the third over and immediately struck with my first ball, a great snaffled catch by Harold behind the stumps! CCC never really looked like challenging our score but we really needed to bowl them out to obtain maximum bowling points. CCC’s second wicket fell soon after their first thanks to some tight bowling by both Tom and Alan which forced a run out then we really got into them. Tom forced a shot against the roof which was caught by me then I managed to bowl their next batsmen round his legs! We were 1 wicket away from obtaining all bonus points for bowling and I handed the ball to Craigy to finish off the innings. Craigy bowled some great balls which were arguably too good for the batsmen. This didn’t lead to a wicket so he decided to throw down a houler, full bunger on the leg side. The batsmen’s eyes lit up and he fortunately hit it straight into the wall and thanks to some instinctive, acrobatic fielding from Harold he managed to hold onto the rebound, whilst lying in the netting at the back of the sports hall! This didn’t matter and a win is a win!
The top of the table is now extremely close and we need to beat Redding and West Quarter on Sunday to stand any chance of winning the league. We also need Doune to beat Stirling to be certain of the title but we could win, if Stirling beat Doune provided we get more bonus points than them. It’s going to be a great final week!
Firstly training is at 6:30 at the academy tonight so see you all later!