Weekend round up 1st/2nd June
Poor weather in the latter half of the week meant that the 2s game at Roseburn and the 5s game at Cavalry Park 2 were called off on Friday. More overnight rain put paid to the 3s match at Westquarter but the 1s game at Grange Loan did go ahead as scheduled.
Watsonians were the visitors and home skipper Ali Evans won the toss and chose to bat first. This looked a courageous call when ‘Sonians pro Malusi Siboto picked up the top 3 cheaply. Worse was to come when home pro Corne Dry fell to a fine legside caught behind to leave Carlton reeling at 21 for 4. Tom Simpson and Ali Shah steadied the ship and although wickets continued to fall the middle order all got going. Will Hardie top scored with 52 and some lusty blows from Shiv Gupta in the last few overs took the home side to 194 all out in their 50 overs.
A stuffy opening stand was broken with the introduction of Adeel Raza who picked up the first of his 4 wickets thanks to a smart catch from Simpson behind the stumps. Carlton continued to pick up wickets at regular intervals, including that of the dangerous Michael Carson, with only opener Zach Place (59) looking comfortable. When the returning Gupta castled him the visitors still needed 80 runs and despite some late order hitting, Watsonians were bowled out for 137 in the 44th over.
On Sunday the 4s entertained Broomhall at Grange Loan and perhaps mindful of the previous day’s events Bob Irvine opted to field first. The 4s didn’t have the same early success and when the Fifers brought up the 150 with only two wickets down a big chase looked in order. A good last quarter with the ball restricted the visitors to 184 for 9 with 3 wickets each for Ewan Hutchinson and Rob Grisentwhaite.
In reply none of the Carlton batsmen were able to produce a match winning innings. Eric Edwards (21); Anish Amin (27); David Simpson (20) & Cameron Keatinge (35) all got in but were unable to really impose themselves on the bowling. Skipper Irvine (14*) did steer the 4s to maximum batting points but in the end they finished 28 runs short.