ESCA Week 4 match reports
The customary mixed weekend for ’Muir.
The Firsts took on Kirk Brae at Meggetland, won the toss and elected to bat. As it occasionally does, that looked a questionable decision when both openers were back in the shed with ducks, but the middle order combined to give ’Muir a decent total. 32 and 37 from Abdul Ghaffar and Gajander Singh respectively, plus an unbeaten 28 from Jawad Ahmed batting at 9 saw us post a decent 156 from 35 overs.
Fielding was to be the Firsts’ Achilles’ Heel, as despite decent bowling they dropped a successions of chances (some reports have that number as high as 8) as Kirk Brae chased down the total, with former Boroughmuir man, Aafaque Hussain leading the scoring for the visitors. Expect more fielding practice at nets…
The Thirds played their first home game of the season, at Gyle Park against Linlithgow 2. The visitors were short of numbers, so it was’t surprising when they elected to bat first. Excellent bowling from Ashok Rajappan, Andrew Bentley (putting ’Muir ahead of watching Manchester City in the FA Cup Final) and particularly tight spells from Hassan Rizwan and debutant Jonathan Collings (also picking up his first wicket in the Green and Blue) restricted the visitors to 83. ’Muir were always odd-on to chase that down, and they did it for the loss of only two wickets. Hari Seeba leading the charge with an undefeated 42 off 23 balls. All in all an excellent performance that saw the boys move up to third in the table.
The Seconds finished off the weekend with a trip to Newfield to play Edinburgh Accies 3s. It was the oddest of tosses as, firstly, Hutton won it and secondly, with the outfield looking damp he elected to bat first. On what is known as a batting track, ’Muir scored freely, but lost wickets with some regularity. There were fireworks from Abi Purayil at 4, but the bulk of the runs came from the 84 run 7th wicket stand between Jamie Good (57 off 66) and Gurvinder Singh who made 24 on his league debut.
There were always doubts that the total of would be enough, and while we struck relatively early to send both openers back to pavilion, a third wicket stand of 114 broke the back of the game. The Newfield strip makes life hard for the bowlers, and the home team were used to batting on it. Thought a late flurry of wickets for Irfan Mohammed had those watching questioning why the captain hadn’t chucked him into the fray earlier, we ended with Accies winning by 5 wickets.