The 1st XI hosted Morton at Myreside. Having been winless in the first half of the season, Morton have started the second half stronger, beating former high-flyers Gala by 3 wickets and bottom-placed Linlithgow by 50 runs in the prior two weeks. With our 1st XI missing key batters, bowlers and their captain, this was set up to be a tougher game than our 161-run demolition in week 3.

Stand-in captain Donovan Du Randt won the toss and opted to bat first. The top and middle order batters each contributed with a series of useful partnerships, the captain top-scoring on 64 and Callum Martin (59) beating his previous best score for the 1st XI by one run on the way to a decent-looking team total of 258.

Morton’s reply followed a very similar pattern with lots of useful partnerships and a high score of 59 for Rajkumar Anandarao. After 40 overs, Morton were 203/4, well on track to make their target. In the next over, Tom Wylie made a game-changing run-out when Anandarao defended and ran off Tom’s bowling. Tom ran, picked up the ball, dove and got a direct hit to run out Kaushik Suresh who had been batting nicely (29 off 17). Gregour Carr took a wicket in the 42nd over, Tom got Anandarao with the first ball of the 43rd before two more run outs had Morton teetering at 221/9, still requiring 48 runs to win in five and a half overs. In a nervy finish, including a nine-ball final over, Morton got very close, finishing on 253/9, allowing us a win by just 5 runs. It may not have been pretty but it was another win under the belt.

The ninth-placed 2nd XI visited Lewisvale Park to face Musselburgh, just one spot above us in the table. We got a win against them by seven wickets when they visited Myreside, so this felt like a great opportunity to break a three match losing-streak. The hosts won the toss and opted to bat first. Our bowlers did well, six of the seven taking wickets, Rory High with the best and his season’s best figures of 3/24 from his nine overs. George Baltzer kept wicket for the first time amid the club’s continuing wicketkeeper shortage. He took a catch and a run-out and learned a lot in the process. Three Musselburgh batters made 30-plus in their 192 all-out knock.

Our innings started badly, with a wicket in the first over, and quickly got worse. After 10 overs we were 26/5 and in all kinds of trouble. The saviour of our innings and gainer of many league bonus points was Rizwan Dharani who made an outstanding 86*, his best for the club to date, surviving for more than 30 overs with notable support from captain Will Ellison (23 balls), Sukhrajveer Singh (27) and Tom Mullin (20). His positive play included 13 fours and a six and made the watching public hope and even believe that the chase was possible. Sadly, while the tail wagged hard it was not enough to make up for the poor start, leaving us 27 runs adrift when the last wicket fell in the 38th over.

The 3rd XI hosted Melrose at Craiglockhart. Winning the toss, captain Jaideep Singh put Melrose in to bat. The visitors got off to a solid start with opener Hamish Mollart making 49, helping them to 80/3 at the halfway mark. From there, the Watsonian attack kicked in to gear, seven of our eight bowlers taking wickets including two each for Abid Shinwari, Aryaman Apte and Magic Maclean. We bowled Melrose out for 142 in 38 overs. Our openers, Siddharth Rawat (29) and Jamie Tucker (21) got us off to a good start with support from Fraser Kinloch (26), getting us halfway to our target for the loss of just two wickets. While three more wickets fell, everyone contributed and an unbeaten sixth wicket partnership of 36 between Finlay Blackstock (19*) and Caylin Pickett (13*) saw us home with nearly ten overs to spare. That makes three wins from the last four games with our one defeat in that spell being to league leaders Tranent & Preston Village 3s. Keep up the great work!

The 4th XI also made it three wins from their last four, beating a mixed-age Bass Rock 2s side at Recreation Park in North Berwick. Incredibly, no fewer than ten players bowled for us with 14-year-old Lewis Scott the standout. He took a fantastic 5/16 in his seven overs (3 maidens) including the opener and top-scorer Chris Long (58). This was the fifth 5-fer of the season in our ESCA league matches, adding to two for Gareth Weatherall in the 1s, and one each for Abid Shinwari in the 2s and Alan Borthwick in the 4s. Impressively, each has come at the cost of less than 20 runs. Edward Jones and Jeetaksh Rawat both posted the same excellent figures of 2/10 off four overs. In total, we restricted Bass Rock to 139/9 off their 40 overs. In reply, Adam Dickinson (30) and Chris Cox (43) starred as our senior batters got us most of the way there. Pranjan Patel and Zach Baltzer were there at the end to see us win by 4 wickets with fourteen overs to spare.