Buff Dave Falls Just Short of Lofty Goals
Haddington vs Melrose 28th August 2021
Another remarkable innings by Dave Arbuthnott wasn’t enough for Haddington, who missed out on third place in ESCA Division 3 in the loss to Melrose CC on the final day of the league season. The Borders team brought their strongest XI of 2021 to Neilson Park, as well as some uncouth spectators, in the knowledge that victory was needed to stave off relegation. Winning the toss, skipper Loftus popped Haddington in first. Loftus himself bowled a touch short and wide allowing Cruickshank & Shaw to leave, though runs were hard to come by, just 1 per over for the first spell. Davenport began to lose his length from the River Tyne End, but James Shaw found the field on the offside, before his opening partner spooned a full toss to cover for a simple catch by Lachlan Baird. The left-armer was then summoned to the bowling crease from the Skate Park Memorial End. Skiddy, erratic & at a decent lick, Baird got a ball to balloon on new man Cardwell-Moore for a simple catch at square leg. 11-2 became 26-3 when Shaw - having played some nice shots and got himself to 20 - was early on a drive to Hosny’s inviting slow-mediums and was caught at mid-off.
Scott Logan begun the repair work with Arbuthnott and took the score to 55-3 at drinks. Mikey Scott, guesting from Manderston CC, ran in hard but began to rack up the wides column and boundary count. There was brief reward for his short-pitched bowling as Logan mistimed to cover, but such deliveries were welcome fodder to Haddington’s burly left hander. A succession of huge sixes were deposited 30+ metres over the rope. Rather unwisely, calls of “he doesn’t have an offside shot in his locker” were greeted with four or five rasping cover drives as the Melrose bowlers pitched up and were put away to both sides of the ground. Unfortunately for Haddington, all the issues were at the other end as once Blades fell for an obdurate 4 - bowled behind his legs to Loftus, returning to the attack perhaps half an hour too late - the innings fell away in all to familiar fashion. Mitchell & Perriam were bowled too, whilst Hancox and Kumar were caught well behind the wicket to complete the visiting captains five wicket hall. Arbuthnott targeted Davenport and offered his first half chance when a flat pull escaped an excellent effort and was parried for six. Having said that, with his score on about 30, a flat full toss from Andrew Scott took Dave by surprise and flew past the bat and into the top of off stump with enough force to snap it clean in two. A bizarre piece of cricket was concluded when the square leg umpire correctly called no-ball for three men behind square on the legside. The correctness of the Law was questioned vigorously from the boundary, though sadly no surviving members of the 1932-33 Ashes Series were on hand to offer spectators an explanation, so both sides got on with the game. To the extent that, of course, the very next ball was sent for a huge six. Later in the innings, a clothed shot carried all the way to the man at midwicket, only for a well judged catch to be spoilt by stepping on the boundary line before the fielder could throw the ball back in bounds, resulting in another six runs to the tally. One Melrose supporter protested rather loudly that Haddington players close by had unfairly called it a six, though later admitted he was unaware of the law that landing on the line is the same as over it, to the amusement of many. The last wicket fell eventually to a good catch by Hosny as Arbuthnott departed for 81 from only 60 odd balls, with ten 4s and five 6s. Haddington left to rue the six overs left unused, but it had in truth been an excellent performance in the field by Melrose with several terrific stops and all players possessing a good arm from the deep.
In reply, Hancox and Shaw kept things exceptionally tight, and the latter removed Williams for a duck with a delightful delivery through the gate, clean bowled. Davenport joined Wojick at the crease and looked every bit the composed number 3 on the way to a calm 17 before Ash Kumar’s spin unsettled him to be caught and bowled. Wojick on the other hand enjoyed tackling the spinners rather more then he did the quick bowlers. An eccentric batsman, prone to self-admonishment and with fidgets aplenty, he nonetheless stands tall and still at the bowler’s release. With back foot strokes difficult on the day and struggling to rotate the strike, he chose to attack the short boundary and struck a succession of glorious boundaries off of Kumar and Rob Macdonald. The left arm spinner had caused Melrose excessive grief in the corresponding fixture, and though he claimed star batsman Doug Crawford caught at point, he had a rare expensive outing here. A smart change of bowling however had Wojick out for 48, caught in the covers off that man Arbuthnott, and 81-5 presented Haddington with a glimmer of defending 136 following a smart caught behind by Mitchell. However, Loftus was dropped at mid-on from Kumar’s bowling and from there shut out the HCC attack with smart running between the wickets with Scott, and astute use of the slog sweep against the spinners. Cruickshank’s miserly two overs prolonged the wait, and Scott hacked wildly at Shaw, but he smartly put away some wayward balls from the returning Hancox to get the ten required for victory and a fifty partnership took the visitors home with almost nine overs to spare. A lack of positive application from the middle order - and forward defensives from those lower down - left HCC short by 25-30 runs of making it a real contest, and perhaps an under use of some of the bowling options on the day once the spinners lost their grip on proceedings. Several full tosses and no balls did not help defend a small total. Selkirk’s surprise loss to Marchmont 2s meant the home side could have leapfrogged (perhaps undeservingly) into third place and with a chance of promotion depending on league shake up over the winter, but all in all a solid season back in league cricket.
The real shame on the day was Fergus Syme having to pull out of the match due to illness, thus missing out on the chance to be leading wicket taker in the Division, though coming second with 26 poles represented a comfortable career best - supported well by 17 from Macdonald. Hiley and Borrowman’s absence in the middle order was felt keenly on the day, though the latter finished with north of 200 runs in the league season, as did Mr Arbuthnott, at an excellent average of 45. 10 catches on the year too for PB is to be heralded.
