As you will probably have seen / heard by now, the season ended with defeat against a strong Kirkwood side comprising several Cowgate first team players.
Having lost the toss skipper Miller was asked to bowl. We weren't too unhappy about this given the 'interesting' state of the wicket. Sure enough Paddy bowled an inspired spell, taking a wicket with Choudry caught behind from the first legitimate delivery.
Joe managed to keep the pressure on from the other end, enabling Paddy to keep cutting through the top order, as Paddy got an LBW and removed the remaining opener's off stump. Ed Lord then got in the act pounching from midwicket to run out the non-striker. 22-4 and the Division 1 high fliers were in real trouble.
The middle order proceeded to consolidate and they started to put real pressure on the civil's fielders with some excellent running bewteen the wickets. Steve Foster and Barry bowled out the innings, taking two wickets a piece and another run out, but Kirkwood would have been happy to recover to 120 odd for 9.
The reply began steadily at around 7 an over with Henry and Colin knocking the ball into the gaps and putting away the (very rare) bad ball. The score had reached 35-0 before the introduction of Choudry was to take the game away from us very quickly.
Henry was lucky to avoid being stumped from the first ball he faced from the experienced bowler after an ill-advised charge down the wicket. Unfortunately, he then chose to to the same, second ball and was not so lucky.
The light was now fading fast and coupled with some excellent bowling, it was difficult to get the ball away, even for the established batsman.
Duncan smacked his second back for 4 but was adjudged (perhaps harshly) LBW next ball. A clattering of wickets followed and the required rate some became impossible. Hansie and Luke went for nowt, but by this stage they were on a hiding to nothing. Colin stayed there to the end to finish 37*, but it wasn't to be. Choudry finished with m-o-m figures of 5-18 from 4 overs.
Despite the disappointment, it was a great effort to get as far as we did and congratulations to everyone who took part in a successful midweek season.
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