Saints Cricket antics in Edinburgh

On Saturday 18^th February, six hardy warriors of the University of St Andrews Men’s Cricket Club climbed upon their steeds and travelled to Edinburgh to compete in the Scottish Student Sport Indoor Cricket six-a-side competition. The other teams competing for the illustrious trophy were Edinburgh, Dundee, UHI and the two teams in our group, Stirling and Strathclyde.

Predictably, the day did not start smoothly. In what provided a startling microcosm of sport in St Andrews, the car booked was not delivered by Arnold Clark. So instead of setting off on time at 9am we did not leave until 10am, and arrived just three minutes before our first game versus Stirling. This was not ideal preparation (as I told the Transport Secretary at the AU) for what was the most important game of the day. After Sam Holland and Alex Dry helped restrict the Stirling mob to a very gettable 104 from their 8 overs, we lost by just two runs. Highlights of the game included our token Fresher Ali Stokes being hit for a six and a four by a girl, some delicious stroke-play from TJ Beattie, whilst Pete Greene bowled and batted well until he ran out Jake Starkey and then got out two balls later for 22, just three short of retiring.

Having arrived at the competition on the emptiest of stomachs, refreshment was in order after our tragically narrow loss to Stirling. The only man capable of reviving our spirits and filling our kites was Colonel Sanders and his secret blend of herbs and spices. Fried chicken was purchased and heartily consumed in a wonderful retail park just a few minutes from Mary Erskine School. The token porn magazine was also bought by our Fresher, as is cricket club tradition, followed by a heavily adult themed story-time.

In their next game, Stirling beat Strathclyde which rendered our next game against the latter team to be worthless. That is unless you count the obscure and abstract notion of ‘pride’ as being something to play for. Which it isn’t. We started our game well, racing to 60 off the first three overs, before a bit of a meltdown meant we were bowled out for 96 in the last over. But that should not have been too much of a problem against Strathclyde, surely? They began to chase down our total with great impetus and raced towards the 96 runs required. But they too suffered somewhat of a meltdown, induced by some fine bowling by Pete Greene and Ali Stokes, and the last ball saw them still needing a run to win. Sadly they scrambled a leg bye and the tournament was over for the boys of St Andrews.

Although it was disappointing to have lost both our games, the Seagulls could take heart from their performance. Both games were decided on the last ball and could easily have gone either way. In addition to this, we left the indoor cricket school with our dignity intact, having not resorted to the vulgar displays of high fives, glove touching, and hugging that the Edinburgh squad treated us to. Furthermore, we also left secure in the knowledge that our degrees would be worth at least twice those of the other five universities involved. I’ll let my readers decide what universities I’m talking about. Plus indoor cricket is even more of a bastardised form of cricket than 20/20.

Now for the shameless plug. The Men’s Cricket Club welcomes players of all abilities at training on Fridays 5pm-7pm and Sundays 1pm-230pm. Get involved.