Every Man Does His Duty

10-man Shipwrecks outmanoeuvred Lockerbie with an excellent away victory on Thursday after an encounter featuring slightly weakened crews on both sides.

After a brief squall that livened up the pitch, returning skipper Alasdair McEwan won the toss and chose to bat.  After a quiet first over, Sid Oates and Danny McBryde, who hit three successive 4s, avoided the calm waters, accelerating to 30-2 by the time Oates was bowled off the first ball of the fifth over - possibly the best start Shipwrecks have had all season.

Called up almost simultaeneously, Davey Fallas and Mike "Senior" Service were soon in full attacking mode, both retiring on 25, Service having improved noticeably his charting of the fuller delivery. With the score already approaching 100, Jason Hall followed on at only slightly reduced revs and it was only unfortunate that his retiral coincided with an exhausted Taylor's run out. But once again, the tail (Jim Worthington and Mike Lumb) wagged and the ship's cat was smiling on a total of 144 after the 20 overs.

On the resumption of hostilities however, there was a feel of deja vu from previous humiliations as Carpenter and Ross Crawford plundered runs all over the place as the ageing argonauts again fumbled in the field. After five overs, Lockerbie were well ahead of the required rate, but at this point fortunes changed.

Mike Lumb Celebrates
His Three Dismissals

Looking to nail a last boundary, Carpenter missed and was bowled by Hall and McEwan responded by taking an excellent return catch to eliminate Crawford in his last over. McEwan was replaced by Colin Taylor, who sought to exploit a sporty breeze off the dogger bank.  In his first over he had Gracie neatly stumped down the leg side by Lumb.  In his second he crucially had Andy Veitch brilliantly taken by Worthington at mid off on the drive, then got one to move off the deck to have Stephenson caught behind by Lumb. After a neat run out by Danny McBryde to remove Dawson, Taylor struck again to bowl Rogerson with a curve ball before Lumb completed his third dismissal and Taylor's five-for when he took another good catch off Harris.

The Lockerbie innings had effectively been torn asunder and Fallas and Worthington picked up the last couple of wickets, dismissing the home side for 95 at the start of the last over.

Overall this was also an excellent performance in the batting and eventually the fielding departments. To avoid more painful pictures of Taylor, Skipper McEwan announce that the Man of The Match Award should be shared by the whole team as everyone had contributed to an excellent win.

Today's result by some accounts means that Shipwrecks have also outflanked Lockerbie at the top of the Division 2 League Table, so that they are now in serious danger of being promoted beyond their level of competence. Hopefully there will be some sort of nautical disaster  or seafaring catastrophe to help them avert this fate.

Scores: Shipwrecks 144 - 7 (Fallas 25 ret, Service 25 ret, Hall 25 ret, McBryde 13, Oates 10, Taylor 10 ; Gracie 2-36) : Lockerbie 95 all out (Carpenter 23, R. Crawford 12 ; Taylor 5-10)

A Happy Crew