Leith Franklin Academicals Beige Cricket Club

Leith Beige’s good performances in midweek cricket have continued as we recorded our fifth consecutive midweek trophy victory, as yet we are unbeaten in midweek cups in 2008.

More impressively the last 2 wins were achieved with players who have not recently been in Leith first eleven.

The first match on June 4 opened the re vamped Masterton/Cow Corner Trophy with a second cup game of the season against Kirk Brae. This witnessed an excellent batting display form a strong team, with exceptional contributions form Pavan Vajihala (41) and Tariq of 32, but featured an innings in which all batsmen contributed. Kirk Brae also contributed a significant total of extras and LFAB reached a score in excess of 150 in 18 overs (supplemented by 4 overs of wide sand no balls from Kirk Brae) – this being due to uncharacteristic score book discrepancies and alleged failure of Kirk Brae to inform the scorers of bowling changes. But given the Leith innings had not finished until after 8 pm and 152 seemed a match winning score this was maybe a blessing in disguise! The Kirk Brae innings prove unspectacular as the only batsmen they had who might have been capable of pulling off a tough ask were dismissed cheaply, and they ended up proceeding sedately on 71-5 of 20 overs, Middleton being the pick of the Leith bowling.

Next up in the midweek cups were perennial rivals Scottish Widows in the second round of the Parks Trophy on June 9. Scottish Widows were batted first on a windy evening and new boy Brewis gave Leith an excellent start by clean bowling previously prolific scorer at Leith Links Eddie “Eagle” Edwards cheaply. Watsonians national league player Euan Robertson batted well for 40 but never got fully into rhythm and slow outfield and three wickets from Ben Wood restricted Scottish Widows to 96-6 of 20 over, Middleton and Sutcliffe also bowling manfully into the wind (in Middleton’s case for 1 over!).

While this was normally a gettable total Leith’s batting on paper did not appear to be to strong. Peter Tweedie and Murray McKean batted for 8 overs after Linklater went for duck and after 10 overs Leith were behind the run rate at 33-1 mainly due to economical bowling by Robertson. Veteran Scott Miller then brought himself on for high pitched off spinners in the gathering gloom and could consider himself unfortunate when McKean survived a stumping appeal in 2 economical overs for 6 runs. Peter was then bowled and captain on the night Wahid Rana promoted himself to 4 in a bid to keep his 100% midweek captaincy record intact but he never got going and was soon caught on the boundary and returned to umpire and shortly saw McKean depart for an excellent 20. This soon led to controversy when he was accused by a Scottish Widows player of allowing a 7 ball overs despite the assurances from other umpire (Ben) and scorers to the contrary, and he became involved in a lengthy “debate” on this - so lengthy that it continued into the next over when from the first ball Jamie Brewis was run out going for a second run and there was no square leg umpire to give decision as Wahid was talking to the fielder! Decision was ultimately agreed as out and this brought in Stevie Middleton in an appropriately named “pressure” situation. However Stevie and Alex rose to the occasion and saw Leith home at the start of the last over, featuring 2 magnificent sixes over long on from Alex and a wonderfully executed leg pull over the mid wicket boundary for 6 near the allotments from Middleton to send Leith ahead of the run rate. Alex Sutcliffe then helped himself to some 4s from some poor bowling on the leg side and finished on 30 not out as LFAB reached 97-5 of 19.3 overs to claim an always valued .

Next up in the midweek cups were Scottish and Newcastle in the Terry Newcombe trophy with both sides approaching game in confident mood, despite again being under strength Leith having eliminated the holders Standard Life and Scottish and Newcastle having scored over 220 in the previous round.

LFAB Win by 4 wickets! Scottish and Newcastle 135-6 Saaed 82 Wood 2 wickets
LFAB 136-5 Nettleton 70 not out