Cricketers to play Orkney
Some Scottish members of parliament think that there is too much media coverage of cricket at the moment. Namely the Ashes being played between England and Australia. This test series is proving to be as exciting as the 2005 series and it is very difficult to predict who shall come out on top.
What about the local cricket? Well this Sunday Orkney come up to Shetland to try to defend the Orkney Breweries trophy that they won in Orkney. The artificial wicket is playing very well this year with plenty of lift and movement for the bowlers. The spinners are also getting plenty of turn, so the batsmen have to concentrate hard to score their runs.
The Shetland squad had its last warm up game on Sunday at Clickimin with a 25 over game played between a chairman’s eleven and a secretary’s eleven with no bowler being able to bowl more than six overs. The secretary won the toss and put the chairman’s eleven into bat first.
The loss of a wicket in the second over made this look like a good decision as Guy Nightingale sent the batsman’s off stump flying. The next wicket fell to the bowling of Craig Jenkins in the fourth over with the score on 12.
Neville Davis was joined by Davy White and these two played very sensibly as they sent any bad bowling to the boundary. With some slack fielding, a couple of dropped catches and a missed stumping these two took the total to 59 before the next wicket fell. Davis looked in good nick as he ended the day on 44 not out from a total of 108 for 7.
The secretary’s eleven reply also got off to a poor start with their first wicket falling in the second over. Guy Nightingale and Paul Hargreaves were now batting together and these two found scoring runs difficult to start with especially from the bowling of Chris Barker. Once Chris was replaced Nightingale went for these shots. Hargreaves also scored well until he retired hurt. The next few batsmen in could not keep the run rate up and it was left to Nightingale to take a few chances. He was dropped twice before he was dismissed for 42. Craig Jenkins played a very solid knock with the bat as he guided his team home with eight balls remaining. The secretary’s 11 scored 109 for 6.
Anyone who wants to come along and try playing cricket should turn up at Clickimin on Wednesday nights at 6pm if you are a junior (nothing this week) or any adults wishing to play should be at Clickimin at 2pm on Sundays. For further details contact John Gray on (01595) 696123 or email shetlandcricket@yahoo.co.uk
