Scorecard

Kelso v Gordonians Cricket Club Gordonians 1st XI on Sun 14 Aug 2016 at 13.00
Gordonians Cricket Club Won by 3 wickets

Match report It is traditional for CS Challenge Cup Final apearances to be epic adventures, and the trip to Coatbridge to play Kelso was no exception. The first shock was that everyone was at Seafield early for the bus, and this allowed the equally traditional stop at McDonalds in Forfar. No bananas for these athletes.
An unexpected road closure close to the ground led the bus on a wild goose chase following about 50 'Diverted Traffic' signs that Dick Dastardly from the Wacky Races would have been proud of. A torturous circumnavigation of the country roads of Cumbernauld County ensued, discovering parts of Scotland that even Irn Bru had yet to reach, eventually led to the bus stopping in Coatbridge to load up google maps.
Having taken a squad of 12, the delayed arrival at the ground put considerable pressure on captain Rane to find a reason to leave someone out. His task was assisted by club legend Jones who declared that the pitch looked seamer friendly, and effectively bagged the 12th man duties, which would mainly involve lots of boundary walking, lots of supportive shouting, and laying a trail of cigarette butts in case anyone wanted to find him.
Rane won the toss and decided not to bat first. This proved an inspired decision as Kelso struggled to get the ball off the square and picked out the fielders with the accuracy of Phil 'The Power' Taylor in a darts final. Having been smacked around at Arbroath the day before, Forbes was having no more of that nonsense, and along with Krutik they tied down the Kelso openers. In the 9th over with the score on 14, Forbes had Grindell caught behind for 11. Adams and Takos dug in and Chris finished with impressive figures of 8 overs, 1 for 12. Chamila and Hamza came on and the scoring continued to stagnate. At drinks Kelso were on 34 for 1 off 20 overs.
The drinks break fortified the Kelso pair and Adams battered consecutive 4's wide of long on, followed by some sharp running which marked a complete change of attitude. The score had zoomed on to 99 when Adams, on 49, managed to give KP a catch off Rane. Takos was then run out, needlessly taking on Mayank's arm, gone for 35. Roberts was stumped 3rd ball for a duck and the tide had turned back in favour of Gordonians. Hughes made up for his part in the Takos run out by hitting a couple of maximums, but then watched as Patterson was run out by Arora. KP returned to bowl spin and took out Hughes for 25 and Davidson for a duck in the same over. A late flurry from Cessford took the total to 154 for 8, KP finishing with 3 for 19, and Chamila only conceding a miserly 17 from his 8 overs, although he only has himself to blame for taking no wickets.
Sree and Aman opened and Sree was looking to punish anything in his eye line. The score had moved quickly to 24 when Aman was caught uncharacteristically failing to clear mid off. 3 balls later and Sree tried to pull a ball on length and saw his stumps clattered for 21. Himanshu and KP steadied the ship but still showed aggression when the chance presented itself. In the 16th over Himanshu was caught for 21 and Kelso sensed a creaking in the Gordonians innings. Some excellent running kept the scoreboard ticking over, and the momentum moved in favour of Gordonians when Hamza launched Adams in to the sky. The fielder went back and back until the rope told him to stop and fetch. Next over and the shot was repeated, just going further. With batting now looking easy it was a bit of a surprise when Hamza nicked behind, out for 31 off only 26 balls. Swapnil seems to have decided that the Final is a spectator sport. Having been out for a 5 ball duck last year, he shuffled in front and was LBW first ball, back to the side lines to choreograph a thrilling finish. Debo survived the hat trick ball and then crunched the cover drive of the day to the boundary. It was time for steady shot selection and cool heads, and unfortunately Debo backed away to chop one off middle stump and he was bowled by the leg spinner for 5. Loads of overs left and in theory lots of batting, but the pressure was escalating. Leg spinner Davidson was bowling some useful stuff but Krutik smacked a bad ball to leg for 4 and went harder at the next ball which was worse, only to see it spiral towards the square leg boundary and the waiting hands of Adams. The tension was immense as Adams positioned his feet centimetres from the rope, with any backwards movement going to turn a potential catch in to a 6. The Kelso supporters went wild, as with the precision of an olympic gymnast on the floor, Adams executed the catch, Krutik gone for 49 off 73 balls.
19 still to win with 3 wickets in hand and 8 overs to go. Tension!
4 studious defensive shots from Forbes must have lulled the Kelso captain in to thinking he was just there to hold up an end, but possibly for the first time in his illustrious career, Forbes spotted a huge gap at cow corner and tonked the ball to the boundary. Down to 3 to win, and as the field came in to a ring, Mayank backed away to leg leaving his stumps exposed, not an issue if you connect and leather the ball for 6 over long on. The hero for the 2nd final in a row. A mini pitch invasion ensued as Mayank was unbeaten on 17 and Chris on 9.
The Kelso players and their vocal support were sporting in their appreciation of a game well played. They had dropped a few chances and had given themselves too much to do after such a slow start to their innings, putting too much pressure on their lower order batting against a tidy and efficient Gordonians bowling attack.
The man of the match award went to Krutik in his last game before heading back to India.
The bus journey back allowed a time for quiet contemplation for some, checking how many likes a posting had on facebook, remembering days of glory before medal fatigued Jason Stark was even born, and for Jones to celebrate like only a legendary 12th man can, failing to finish the story involving a bus trip, himself and the luggage compartment.
Some photos are in the photo gallery on the left hand menu.


Kelso Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
3w 2b 5lb 
for 8 wickets
10
154 (40.0 overs)		     
T Grindell ct  Forbes 11 30 23 47.83
C Adams ct  Rane 49 106 90 4 1 54.44
J Takos Run out  35 81 65 3 53.85
M Hughes ct  Patel 25 26 18 2 138.89
T Roberts st  Rane 0 3 3 0
S Patterson Run out  6 12 8 75.00
B Grindell Not Out  5 18 11 45.45
G Davidson b  Patel 0 2 4 0
R Hogarth b  Patel 5 6 7 71.43
S Cessford Not Out  8 3 6 1 133.33
C Davidson  

Gordonians Cricket Club Gordonians 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Chris A R Zz_Forbes8.0312112.001.50
Krutik Patel8.011936.332.37
Chamila N Perera8.031700.002.13
Hamza zz_Arshad5.002600.005.20
Aman Arora4.002800.007.00
Swapnil Rane7.0045222.506.43

Gordonians Cricket Club Gordonians 1st XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
1w 1b  
for 7 wickets
2
158		        
Sreedish Devadas b  Cessford 21 25 24 3 87.50 1 1
Aman Arora ct  Cessford 3 22 15 20.0 1 1
Himanshu Saraswat ct  Adams 21 31 30 2 70.0
Krutik Patel ct  C Davidson 49 92 73 5 67.12 1
Hamza zz_Arshad ct  Hughes 31 35 26 2 2 119.23
Swapnil Rane lbw  Hughes 0 1 1 0
Debojyoti zz_Barman b  C Davidson 5 12 13 1 38.46
Mayank S Bhandari Not Out  17 30 20 1 1 85.00 1
Chris A R Zz_Forbes Not Out  9 16 15 1 60.0
Jason Zz_Stark  
Chamila N Perera  

Kelso Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
S Cessford8.0221210.502.63
G Davidson7.103700.005.16
C Adams8.0039139.004.88
M Hughes7.0137218.505.29
C Davidson6.0123211.503.83