Victory Scoop at Huntly
Strathmore & Perthshire Premier League
Saturday 26 May
The Breadies first XI took the whisky trail north to title favourites Huntly, and came away with a thrilling 2 wicket win in a vintage performance.
Huntly won the toss and, with great faith in their batting line up (including former Pakistan Under 19 International Azhar Ali), elected to bat.
Following the previous week’s defeat in Dundee, the Breadies skipper Mark Bowler tinkered with the field settings and produced a tight cordon that the Huntly batsman struggled to pierce with any regularity. After 15 overs, when the fielding restrictions are lifted, Huntly had only 29 on the board with 2 batsman back in the pavilion, both falling to sharp catches by Laurence Bax in the covers. Ominously, however, Azhar Ali remained at the crease and was beginning to push the ball around well. |
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Wickets fell regularly at the other end, though, as the Breadies kept the cap screwed on tightly, including M.Massie to a brilliant boundary catch by Andrew Duncan Millar. When at last Myles Bax bowled Ali, for a fluent 74, with Huntly on 117, the Breadies closed in for the kill. However some good running between the wickets in the final 10 overs ensured Huntly scrambled to a defendable total of 175 for the loss of 8 wickets (including 2 apiece for Darren Mortimer, Chris Eyes and Mark Bowler).
Breadalbane began the reply in positive fashion with three flashing boundaries from Andrew Duncan Millar before he fell, caught behind. This bought Darren Mortimer to the crease, who with Oliver Platts, put on 89 for the second wicket, in aggressive fashion. The partnership came to an unfortunate end though, when Mortimer was run out by Ali following a mix up. Ali then had Platts unluckily given out lbw for 29, and Huntly sensed their chance. Quickly they switched to a more attacking field as they tried to apply more pressure to the incoming batsmen.
As the skies clouded over in the early evening, the ball began to swing more and more. The Breadies middle order found run scoring harder and wickets began to fall as the required run rate steadily rose. Crucially, however, number 4 Laurence Bax (28 not out) refused to budge and, when his brother Myles joined him in the 39th over, the youngest vintage on display put together a vital 21 run partnership to all but see the Breadies home.
In one last twist, however, Myles Bax chopped on to his own stumps in the penultimate over, leaving the team just 2 runs short of victory. However, this left Mark Bridgeman, the thumping stumper, with the chance to clip the ball off his legs for four and steal all the glory from Laurence Bax, who had hung doggedly around since the 28th over, to help see the Breadies home.
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