Ellon Gordon Cricket Club fall short in remarkable game
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Ellon Gordon Cricket Club were involved in a quite exceptional game on Saturday at home against Grade Two leaders Grampian.
Chasing a mammoth 265 for victory, the seventh highest ever recorded against Ellon, they fell short by 23 runs thanks mainly to a superb faultless innings of 124 from Tom Proctor, in his first game for the club in over two years.
Grampian elected to bat first on winning the toss and it was soon obvious as to why they did so with their openers getting them off to a whirlwind start of 68 in the first overs.
The introduction of Barrett into the bowling attack, however, brought about the break through with two wickets in his first two overs.
Sandham struck next trapping opener Gopinathan when the score was 89.
Acting skipper Varghese then featured in two partnerships of 78 and 58 with first Jacob and then Hussain to take the Grampian total over the 200 mark.
He was out five short of his century when he was caught by Sandham off the bowling of Greenfield in the first over of his second spell which yielded two wickets.
Grampian were not finished yet and added a further 40 runs in the last five overs of their 40 over allocation. Varghese's innings of 95 consisted of 16 fours and one six.
The Most successful Ellon bowler was Barrett with two for 28 during his spell that helped considerably to slow down the run rate.
All the other bowlers used suffered somewhat in the rather savage Grampian attack. Their total of 265 yielded no fewer than 41 fours but only one six.
Grampian 265 for 7: J Varghese 95; J George 49; Z Hussain 28; J Barrett two for 28.
Ellon's task after the tea break was to get as near as possible to maximum batting points score of 175. Little was expected of what was to follow.
Webb and Greenfield were given the task of getting the innings off to a good sound start and this they did with an opening partnership of 44 in only six overs.
On the fall of Greenfield's wicket Proctor joined Webb to put on 55 runs in only a further nine overs.
The fall of Webb's wicket for a typical swashbuckling innings of 57, which included eight fours and two sixes, allowed Barrett to join son-in-law Proctor at the crease.
It is not often that JB has been asked to play second fiddle but on this occasion he had no choice as Tom dominated the 53 run partnership.
Unfortunately Ellon lost the momentum for awhile after this with the fall of three quick wickets in the process.
However, further partnerships of 25 and 62 with Sandham and then Campbell renewed hope that Ellon just might pull off victory after all as long as Proctor was at the crease and he could retain the strike as often as possible.
But sadly that was not to be the case as he fell to a superb catch by the keeper down the leg side when the total was 242.
His innings of 124 which produced shots all round the ground included 14 fours and three sixes and had been a joy to watch.
What a difference a cut outfield makes to the scoring shots along the ground. In Ellon's overall total no fewer than six sixes and 26 fours were recorded.
Grampian called upon no fewer than nine bowlers to try and stem the flow of runs in what had been an exhilarating game to watch never mind to have played in with just more than 500 runs in total scored and only two maiden overs bowled.
The most successful Grampian bowler was S Charley with three for 28. The Grampian fielding had generally been good and helped greatly in keeping the score down.
Ellon Gordon 242 (39.5 overs): T Proctor 124; B Webb 57; R Greenfield 15; S Charley three for 28; J George two for 31
Despite this latest good performance Ellon are not out of the woods yet being near the bottom of Grade 2.
They have three games left which starts this Saturday away at Banchory.
