THE North might have fallen at the first hurdle last weekend in the
NCA County championship, but yesterday they continued to set the pace in
the Royal Bank of Scotland Quaich, writes Stewart Weir.
At Titwood, they defeated holders Strathclyde East by 10 runs.
However, the bottom side in the table had, at one stage, looked odds-on
to upset the series leaders.
North totalled 236-7, opener Neil McRae second out in the 30th over
with the score on 90, the Aberdeenshire opener making the top knock with
56.
The Arbroath pairing of Kevin Ritchie (43) and Murray Clark (35)
joining in a useful partnership of 67, with club-mate George Salmond
also adding 33.
Strathclyde East overcame some early setbacks and were cruising while
Jon Williams and Greig Williamson were in tandem.
They put their side in with a chance with a stand of 106 for the fifth
wicket. But having made 84, Williams lost his wicket on 199, in the
fifty-fourth over. That was the start of S/East's demise.
The home side continued to lose wickets, but still needed 12 to win
off the last six balls with just one wicket intact. But, Muzaffer
Mahmood fell to the second ball of Ritchie's over, Nigel Hazel taking
the catch at the second attempt.
Strathclyde West kept in touch by beating Edinburgh by seven wickets
at Prestwick Oval.
Mike Leonard made his 50, Roddy Smith hitting 40 before being stumped
by David Haggo. But, the capital men were 173 all out.
After losing their first three wickets for 75, Albert Simpson and
Stuart Kennedy saw their side home with an unbroken partnership of 99,
Simpson making 62, Kennedy 36.
South lost ground losing to Central by six wickets. South made 118,
including 55 from Jason Arnberger, but that was surpassed by Central,
Freuchie's Scott Birrell hitting 40.
* LANCASHIRE delivered a crushing blow to Essex's fading Britannic
Assurance County Championship challenge by winning by an innings and 60
runs with a day to spare at Chelmsford.
After Neil Fairbrother's 103 took them to a first-innings score of
414, Essex needed to score 198 to make them bat again.
But after slumping to 10 for three, Essex were always in trouble, the
only real resistance coming from opener Nick Knight's 59 as they were
dismissed for 138.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article