Carradale CC  Vs  Sannox CC

25th July 2010-07-26

Carradale played host to league rivals Sannox CC on Sunday, with both sides desperate for the win for different reasons. Sannox, who gave the home side a royal drubbing earlier in the season were hoping to keep alive their title aspirations, whilst Carradale were looking to lift themselves off the bottom of the table.

The game started with Sannox putting Carradale in to bat in overcast condition. The visitor, who were missing vital players for the game, tried in earnest to make early inroads into the Carradale line up, who to begin with made a steady but slow start to the innings. First to go for Carradale was R Fox who left with only 9 on the board. Next in was D Baxter who left shortly after for an un-arranged trip to A&E to get 3 stitches put in his forehead after a blow to the head. After his departure Carradale managed to get hold of the game and pick up the scoring rate and put the pressure back on the Sannox side. G MacIndeor scored a fluent 17, and the middle order of Carradale managed to all score runs for the first time in a long time. A Keogh scored 21, S Walker 32 and S McBrayne 31. These scores put Carradale in a good position for a late order assault to end the innings on 137 for 8. E Dunn for Sannox finished with figures of 2 for 20 and Marriott 2 for 19.

After the break, Carradale knew they would be in for a hard task to win the game with big hitter M Kemp opening the batting for Sannox. The new ball pairing of Keogh and A McMillan did their usual tricks by keeping the score down and putting pressure on the batting pair. But Carradale have struggled this year in the bowling side of the game as not having enough frontline bowlers and having to find overs from others guys. That said G MacIndeor and R Fox tried in earnest to keep the momentum, but lack of experience and nous opened the door slightly for Sannox. Then came the turning point in the game. Alan Robertson who hasn’t bowled a ball in a game before was given the chance to shine, and shine he did. His first over brought the wicket Carradale had been searching for by getting pomeroy caught for 13. His next over then brought the wicket of Armstrong for 4. This was when it all really started to fall apart for the Arran side. Marriott was out LBW to A McMillan, and the big wicket of Kemp came from a strange bit of cricket from both sides. After the fall of Dunn for 12 the game was basically won for Carradale and the Sannox innings soon ended on 101 all out.

So Carradale managed to pull some pride back from earlier on in the season, but still have much to do, to challenge for the league title next year, like their Arran counterparts can.