A damp afternoon at Inverleith was one to forget for the 1st XI, playing Stewarts Melville. The pitch was soggy, but SM managed to put on a very respectable 186, getting bowled out on the last ball of the shortened 45-over innings. Their middle order batted well, doing most of the work and getting them from 9/2 to 157/6 before the tail was dispatched. The bowling work was shared among seven bowlers for Watsonian, with six managing to take wickets. Tom Pratt bowled very economically to start (1/13 off nine overs). Captain Gareth and Ben Jones took two each and Ruk Holey cleaned up at the end with 3/20 off his five overs. Our batters found it much tougher going with only three double-digit scores in our total of 81 all out.

The 2nd XI were deprived of a game against rivals Penicuik by the wet conditions at Myreside.

The 3rd XI were able to play at Craiglockhart only by virtue of using the artificial wicket. Dunfermline & Carnegie’s 2s enjoyed the bounce and the short boundaries making it to 237/9 in their forty overs, with one half-century from James Spreng (57) and three other 25+ scores. Daniel Bryen (26) and Chris Cox (29) got us off to a good start but only Louis and Tom Mullin among our other batters got into double digits. D&C went big, we went home 117 all out.

The 4th XI were also hosting on an artificial wicket this weekend, facing Bass Rock 2s at Myreside. In a low-scoring first innings, we battled to 123/9 off our full forty overs, with most batters chipping in with something. Matt Lancashire was our top scoring batter, helped by not one, but two sixes hit off no balls, making 25 in total. The Bass Rock openers made a good start, putting on 35, which was almost as much as the next nine wickets in total would generate. Aakash Chauhan, making his debut for the club, took an excellent 4/20 from 8 overs, very ably assisted by ‘Magic’ Maclean (3/9 from 8, including 3 maidens) and the less patient Simon Israel, who needed only 2.3 overs to take his 3 wickets. An excellent result for the 4th XI, winning by 51 runs.

Our Women had a week off this week but will travel to West of Scotland CC next Sunday to try and make it three from three in the WPL.

Here’s hoping for some respite from the rain and better conditions for all next weekend.