The 1st XI continue to chase a promotion opportunity and the Championship title as the race enters its final stages. This week, they visited third-placed Gala, the first of our promotion rivals (as Heriots 2s cannot be promoted to the EPL, being a second XI). Gala won the toss and put us in to bat. Our scoring pace was steady rather than rapid, with no Oli or Donovan to catalyse things, but our batters were not for giving away their wickets. Mike Carson starred once again, making an excellent 105, anchoring our innings, including a 108-run partnership with Tom Wylie (47), and firming up his place at the top of the Championship run-scorers list with 564 runs from 11 innings, more than a hundred runs clear of second placed Jonathan Brock of Grange 2s. In doing so he notched up his 11th century for the 1st XI (on top of two for the 2nd XI) and passed 6000 runs for the 1st XI, only the tenth player in the club’s history to do so. We finished on 243/8 from our 50 overs.

Gala, in reply, scored at a decent clip, above the required rate, but lost wickets early and at regular intervals as all seven of our bowlers set about their work effectively. Not least captain Gareth Weatherall who took 3/39, also Tom Wylie taking 2/29. Gregour Carr and Callum Martin’s wickets taken were their 100th and 50th for the 1st XI respectively. Janith Chathuranga for Gala made 79 but no other batters really stepped up leaving Gala 186 all out, losing by 57 runs. Besides Heriots and any penalty funnies aside, no-one can catch us for the play off spot now, a fabulous achievement with three games still to go. Seven more points will secure the Championship title for Watsonian with hopes high for the coming weekend’s fixture at Myreside hosting Linlithgow. Despite putting an incredible 501 runs past them at Boghall, for the loss of only three wickets, we got no result as the match was abandoned for rain. Here’s hoping for another strong performance, the right result and the title wrapped up on Saturday!

The 2s hosted eighth-placed Livingston at Myreside. Captain Dan Kirk won the toss and put Livingston in to bat, principally because only four of their players had arrived at this point! A disordered batting line up showed as, on a glorious afternoon on a good wicket, our bowlers ran through the top order, Cal Macleod taking the first three wickets to fall (final figures 8-2-18-3) with the score on only 9. Will Ellison took the next two taking Livingston to 16/5. Rory High took 2, Sukhrajveer Singh 2 and Ben Hogg one to finish the job, getting Livingston all out for 110.

Dan (13) and George Baltzer (25) put on 51 for the second wicket before our own umpire gave a criminal lbw decision under pressure from the opposition. This knocked the wind out of our sails for a bit but Will (20*) and Alex Turner (26*) put on an unbeaten 47 run partnership to take us safely home with six wickets and ten overs to spare. This was a long overdue third win for the 2s and puts eighth place within reach if we can get at least two wins from our remaining three games.

The 3rd XI travelled to the lovely Winterfield Park in Dunbar. Our hosts chose to bat upon winning the toss. Sean Ridge took two wickets in his first over to cause some alarm, but Dunbar consolidated from then on putting on partnerships of 128, 23 and 56 to take them to 209/4 after 40 overs. Our opener Vishal Chawan made his maiden half century for the club (53), Jamie Reid contributed 19 and a few other batters got starts but it wasn’t our day as we were bowled out for 128 in the thirty fourth over.

The 4th XI hosted Marchmont 4s at Craiglockhart. Captain Ewan Robertson won the toss and asked Marchmont to bat first. Our captain suffered some friendly fire (a ball thrown in his face!) and was off the field for a chunk of the first innings and at one point we were down to nine players as a junior suffered a nosebleed. With bigger gaps in the field than normal, Marchmont’s top order capitalised, Indranil Nath making 51 and taking them to 137/3. From there, the batting dried up a little and between them our nine bowlers took six wickets (two each for Duncan and Ollie Robinson) as Marchmont made 205, a score we had only reached twice before this season. Our batters set about the task with gusto, most especially Duncan Robinson whose 83* was the linchpin of our chase (his maiden half century for the club). He partnered with Matt Burgess (35) for 66 runs, with Ewan (36) for the next 66 runs and saw us home with Louis Ferguson (9*) with fully ten overs to spare!

A fuller write up of the ongoing club week will hopefully follow but a couple of milestones from the first match, against an ESCA Select XI on Sunday at Myreside, are worth sharing. Mike Carson followed up his 105 against Gala with 100* (retired) – the first time a Watsonian has scored centuries on successive days – and Kevin Singh made his first half century for the 1st XI.