Wildcats Keep Their Nerve to Tie with Carlton U13s
In a great game of cricket, the Wildcats held their nerve to earn a well deserved tie with Carlton in the U13A league at Myreside on Monday evening.
Carlton 103 for 4 v Watsonian Wildcats 103 for 8
Carlton took first hit on a slow, green wicket and Jamie Cousin got the Wildcats off to a great start with a wicket in each of his first two overs, both clean bowled. Matty Henderson gave great support from the other end, bowling a tight line which restricted the scoring opportunities for the Carlton batsmen.
The good work was continued by Alasdair Middleton and Calum Young but we were unable to take more wickets at this stage. The Carlton batsmen began to find more confidence pushing the scoring rate along with both retiring having scored well compiled 30s.
With new batsmen at the crease, Kathryn Bryce and Rory Evans took over and bowled very well, losing only 14 runs in 4 overs which stalled the Carlton acceleration. Jamie and Matty came back to finish off, losing only 6 runs off the last two overs with Matty taking a well deserved wicket with the last ball of the innings.
Carlton finished on 103 for 4 which could have been a lot more but for some excellent bowling and fielding at important moments through the innings.
Rory Evans opened the batting with a new partner, Kerr Stoddart. After a bright start, Kerr was quickly back in the pavilion and Rory was joined by Alasdair Middleton and between them, they put together a good partnership, working the ball well for singles and hitting the bad balls for 4. Unfortunately, just as they were getting their eye in, they were both out followed in a similar fashion by Calum Young and Jamie Cousin.
This put pressure on the lower order but impressively, the remaining batsmen worked out what they needed to do to put us into a position to win the game. Kathryn Bryce and Calum Hilton scampered quickly between the wickets with Kathryn being run-out in a sacrifice for that all important additional run. Calum struck an all important bondary before being bowled and David Mclean chipped in before also being bowled with 3 runs to win from 3 balls remaining.
Fraser Cousin and Matty Henderson were the batsmen facing the last 3 balls with 3 runs to win – no pressure!!!! The first ball was a wide – 2 to win from 3. The next two balls went through to the keeper for no runs leaving 2 to win off the last ball. Fraser instructed Matty just to run, and he did just that as the wicketkeeper juggled the ball allowing us to run through for 1 bye.
A final total of 103 for 8 meant that the game finished in a TIE which was probably the right result in a very tight game of cricket. No-one deserved to lose and it was great to see both teams thinking very hard towards the end of the game about the tactics they needed to employ.
Coaching point for the week – a number of the top order batsmen gave their wickets away just when they were looking “set”. If two had gone on to retire at 30 we would have won the game easily, if one had scored 30, I suspect we also would have won easily. Remember, your wicket is precious, do not give it up easily. Concentrate hard, do the job yourself. Don’t hope that others will do it for you.
Now on to the return against Carlton this Monday where a win will probably put us in a league winning position.
Afterthought – nobody was more pleased at the end than Jack Hewitt who was sitting with his pads on waiting to bat. Jack had an injury and would have needed to bat with a runner, hard enough without the pressure of the match situation.
