2s vs Williamfield (A) – Match Report
On a glorious day in Stirling with the beautiful backdrop of The Wallace Monument in full view, Hillhead 2s lost the toss and Williamfield chose to bat first on a bat-first wicket.
M. Forbes kicked us off with the ball with, let’s say, a “loosener”… Hoping that wasn’t a sign of things to come, Williamfield held firm in the opening stages, picking up runs with quick singles and the occasional boundary from some testing bowling at times.
Forbes made the breakthrough to leave Williamfield 33-1. Hillhead second wicket came almost immediately after off P. Bartlett’s bowling, with Forbes taking a fine catch at short in-front-of point.
Williamfield stabilised the innings and put on another 96 runs before the fall of the 3rd wicket – A. Mishra taking his first Hillhead wicket on debut! A much needed breakthrough! 3 became 4 with Rammy taking a simple catch off R. Paryani’s bowling in his first over (again, on debut). Williamfield now found themselves on 128-4 having not reached the halfway point yet.
Paryani struck again in quick succession, followed by Mishra following this up with another wicket, leaving Williamfield 134-6 and putting Hillhead 2s in a strong position.
Williamfield got going again and Hillhead struggled to finish the job off. 2 back-to-back wickets fell with Paryani being rewarded for his persistence with the ball. Williamfield, on 199-8, now had a defendable total. Williamfield were eventually all out for 269, mainly accredited to A. Carswell with a fine 67*, C. Morton’s 51 and extras.
Hillhead 2s started cautiously in reply. Bartlett and S. Kumar held firm initially, seeing off challenging bowling. Despite the cautious start, Hillhead lost wickets relatively early on, with the first 4 batters falling for 69 runs. Hillhead 2s could not mount much of a comeback, with wickets falling relatively regularly and no one batter building a strong innings that was enough to cause Williamfield any fear of the result. Hillhead 2s succumbed to 142 all out. A staggering 128 runs short of the target.
Special mentions go to Mishra with the ball (10-0-46-2), Forbes with 9.4-1-47-2 and Paryani with some important wickets in the first innings (8-0-54-4). Bartlett, S. DaBell, A. Kumar and A. Bell all showed resilience at the crease and promise with the bat, but all failed to build on a good start to their innings. A late cameo from Paryani made the total more respectable, but ultimately it was not enough to significantly challenge the result.
Hillhead 2s face Albert Park next Saturday in their first home match of the season. Some tighter bowling, being sharper in the field, conceding far fewer extras and more patience with the bat (but with the ability to accumulate runs regularly) are needed from now on from the 2s to be competitive in Champ 1. More focused training to allow improvements in all these areas is needed to make this “routine” for the 2s.
