2012 was a strange season.
We finished with a decent record. Played 10 won 7 lost 3 -enough to finish second in the league.
We had worked quite hard to recruit players over the winter & as a result had a relatively young & inexperienced squad -certainly when compared to recent seasons.
The flip side of that was that there were a number of players who had never played on a soft scottish wicket before & struggled to make runs.
Unfortunately like so many other seasons, the fixture list was decimated by the Scottish "summer".
We only completed 9 out of the 18 fixtures, with 1 being conceded as the opposition could not raise a team (ironically on one of the drier days) & the rest being lost to the weather.
My initial target was to make sure the team did not get relegated again, & after a fairly poor performance on our first game of the season against Dunbar, I was concerned that we did not have enough experience in the team to make runs.
Our next game was away at Falkland & was played on a slow, low, artificial wicket.
Despite this, we posted a respectable 169 thanks mainly to Mark Jones's contribution of 44.
The wickets were shared around, but statistically the pick of the bowlers was Paul Hamilton who, playing his one & only game of the season took 2-2.
The following week we played Marchmont at home.
We got off to a much better start, George Dickson & I putting on 45 for the first wicket, then Neil Davidson & myself adding another 45 for the third wicket. I scraped a 50 thanks largely to a simple dropped catch, which possibly cost them the game.
We fielded & bowled a lot better, but the victory was set up by Shahid Chaudry who bowled an excellent spell & finished with 3-19 which included the prize wicket of Neil Grainger.
I polished off the tail to finish with 3-12. We won by 30 runs.
Our 4th game was against probably the weakest side in the league. -OCCC.
George & I made 70 for the first wicket.
He top scored with 45, then Kenny Skidmore enjoyed his best day of the season ending with 41 not out. Cruelly robbed of a 50!
We welcomed new player Lavaneesh Gauatam for his debut, & he produced a fantastic spell of accurate seam bowling & took 5-15.
I hogged the bowling at the other end & finished with 5-20. We bowled out OCCC for just 48, a total which had their Captain apologising for the performance.
I think at this stage I'd got the measure of the standard of cricket & realised that we might be in with a chance of promotion if we could keep a consistent team selection going.
The next weeks game was against Clackmanan County & I was surprised to be put into bat.
The reasons soon became obvious as it became apparent how bowler friendly the wicket was.
The ball bounced & seamed alarmingly, & we were soon reduced to 27-7.
Had it not been for the heroics of Neil Davidson's 21 -which would have been worth a 50 on a decent pitch then DJ & Chandu's efforts towards the end of the game then we would never have got near the 74 that we eventually posted.
I thought we might have had a chance in the game if we took early wickets, sadly it wasn't to be as Clacks raced to 26-0 from 7 overs. Niranjan then took an excellent caught & bowled then out of nowhere, I picked up 5 wickets including a long sought-after hat-tick. My first in 28 seasons at the Club.
Had one catch in the deep been held, I genuinely think we'd have won an incredible victory, but Clacks held on to win by 3 wickets.
Another defeat & a really poor performance to an under strength Selkirk had me worrying again about our league position.
However we beat Marchmont for the second time on what was probably the slowest outfield I've ever played on, thanks to patient batting from George & new recruit Arslan Faisal who helped us crawl to 107-8 of 45 overs.
In reply, despite some debatable umpiring decisions, we bowled Marchmont out for just 66 with all the bowlers picking up wickets.
This led us to probably the highlight of the season for the 2's.
We struggled to contain a good West Lothian side who having scored 205-6 of 45 were confident of victory, but an amazing partnership of 182 between Mark Jones & myself led us to an improbable 8 wicket victory.
I scored 69, & Mark was the star of he show & finished with 110, one of very few players to score a hundred in the 2's.
Frustratingly, he was out with the scores tied!
Our final match which secured 2nd place & promotion was a straight forward 8 wicket victory against a brave 7 man Dunfermline Wanderers team.
Interestingly, We bowled only 9 no balls all season.
We only conceded 9 byes.
Yet, somehow we bowled 18 overs of wides -108 balls!
Thanks to the Committee & particularly Club President Kenny Skidmore for help over the season.
In conclusion, we had a good season but we need to share more of the match responsibilities around.
Hopefully batsmen will be more familiar with Scottish pitches & bat accordingly.