The second game of the weekend for the 1s, was a journey to Dalziel Park in Motherwell against Motherwell CC. Everywhere the Hillhead 1s boys travel to, the gazebo goes too, so the first part of the warm up was the erection of that which I must say is getting slick!
Hillhead won the toss and elected to bat on a dry looking wicket. Jim Lindley-Dawe and Krushnesh Patel opened the batting and soon realised that this was going to be a challenging pitch to bat on. The bounce was very variable with some staying low and others popping off a length at nearly the same spot!
Lindley-Dawe (4) was the first wicket to fall, getting bamboozled by a steeply dipping full toss which seemed to everyone a bizarre ball! 23/1 at the start of the 6th over. Ganu Adarkar (1), Hugo Longrigg (2), and Alex Hawley (2) all fell quickly. Patel was digging in at the other end riding his luck at times! With the score at 58/4 after 15 overs things were not looking so rosy for the Hillhead boys.
However, Jared Bartlett confidently strode to the crease and was aggressive, counter attacking sending balls to the legside boundary with ease! Together with Patel they built a strong partnership of 64 before Patel (47) was out LBW in the 30th over. 122/5.
Sai Kumar (0) got an absolute snorter first up and snicked off for a golden duck. Darshan Chatrathi (5) smashed his first ball for 4 but when trying to emulate the shot again he missed and the ball crashed into his stumps. 133/7 off 32 overs.
Hillhead were in danger now of collapsing and failing to post a competitive total. Hari Sathian on debut was given strict instructions to do nothing silly and try to get Bartlett on strike as much as possible. Hari however had other plans! Some of the cleanest hitting of the day including a huge 6 over extra cover sent the lads into ecstasy! Sathian finally fell caught trying his luck once too often, but not before making a better than run a ball 36, including 3 fours and 2 sixes. Well played lad!
194/8 off 43.3 overs soon became 199/9 with Gowtham Kathiravan (4) trying to hit the ball over the long off fielder but only managed to find him. Kesh Soni and Bartlett managed to hold on for a few more overs bringing the total to 210 before Bartlett (60) was finally dismissed in the 49th over. E. Xtra performed well again with 44 (38 wides.)
Well done Jared for bringing up his maiden ‘weekend’ 50 for Hillhead!
Hillhead 210/10 off 48.1 overs
J. Bartlett 60, K. Patel 47, H. Sathian 36
S. Thomas 3/30, S. Khan 2/27, A. Pichaimuthu 2/30, R. Palanismy 2/46
A lovely tea consisting of Chicken and Vegetable Biryani with a grand cup of tea to wash it down was thoroughly enjoyed by all. It was very much required as Motherwell had taken 3 hours and 45 minutes to bowl their overs, and most of the lads were famished!
Patel and Soni both bowled dangerously on a pitch that was deteriorating and starting to misbehave with an increasing regularity. Both picked up a wicket each but were unlucky not to get a couple with several going between the slip cordon. 20/2 in the 7th over.
Gowtham Kathiravan came on first change and although struggled at times to find his line managed to pick up the the next 2 wickets including the dangerous looking opener K. Selvaraj (26.) 73/4 off 17 overs.
The spin duo of Bartlett and Chatrathi killed off any hope of Motherwell chasing the total down picking up wickets regularly and also keeping things tight. Wicket keeper Lindley-Dawe managed to make an absolute meal of catching a skier when Motherwell were 9 down. (Of course the game was being live streamed and family and friends from near and far have found it hilarious!) But thankfully it didn’t matter with Bartlett finishing the innings the over after bowling out #11 at the start of the 32nd over. Patel took an absolute blinder of a catch for one of Bartlett’s wickets running from mid off approximately 30 yards and taking the catch still at full sprint!
Bartlett finished with figures of 4/28 off his 7.1 overs. Well played young man.
Motherwell 125/10 off 32.1 overs
A. Palanismy 30, K. Selvaraj 26.
J. Bartlett 4/28, G. Kathiravan 2/22, D. Chatrathi 2/23.
A strong performance with the ball however the batting could have been better today. We need to have more discipline batting the 50 overs, and also as a bowling unit we need to work on reducing the amount of wides that we are gifting the opposition.
However 2 wins out of 2 is a successful weekend in anyone’s book, and the skipper left Motherwell feeling happy, and also blessed with what an absolute lovely group of lads he has in his squad.
