Our opening league fixture with Preston Village was surprisingly, due to the recent weather, played in sunshine.
Not the warmest day, but pleasant enough.
It was a nice to see former Boroughmuir Club Captain Dermot Gilbert paying for PV.
Boroughmuir lost the toss & were asked to bat.
Keith Docherty & Jonathan James opened the batting against 2 spinners on a understandably slow wicket.
Jono didn't last long as the first of many bad shots presented a straightforward catch.
Worse was to follow when DJ Venkataraman was out for zero with the scoreboard reading 8-2.
Arslan Faisal was next to bat & played a number of good shots before he was out for 10, a really excellent catch by the bowler. 9 times out of 10, it would have been dropped, but not today.
Kenny Skidmore brought some much needed stability to the batting & shared a partnership of 28 before Docherty skied a wide half volley down mid-ons throat for 31. 52-4.
Tahir Chaudhry playing his first game for a couple of years had slices of good fortune before being stumped for 5.
Kenny was bowled by a decent Yorker for 17, leaving us just 70-6.
Unusually, Charles Buchan was out cheaply for 7 runs, & with the scoreboard reading 83-7 things looked pretty bleak.
However Niranjan Siddegowda & Tej Bhinde shared an excellent partnership in the context of the Innings. Some good shots, coupled with daring running between the wickets saw the pair share a partnership of 34 which at least gave us another bonus point.
The last wicket was that of Ian McCutcheon. Yet another spectacular run out for the collection!
Niranjan finished on 25 not out & was joined by Vamsi Bodapati who scored 1 n.o.
Our innings closed at a respectable 125-9 in the allotted 45 overs.
Arslan Faisal opened the bowling & looked capable of taking a wicket at any time. It was incredible it took
until the 7th over of the game until he struck.
Neither Arslan nor Keith Docherty got any luck at all as several catching chances were spurned & the ball passed the edge regularly.
1st change DJ took an early wicket to give us hope
at 22-2, & it looked like a close game was in prospect.
However a determined 3rd wicket partnership of 68 changed the game despite some good bowling from DJ, Ian, & Niranjan.
Unfortunately, too many catches were dropped & when Charles Buchan finally took a wicket thanks to a smart low catch by DJ, the game was heading towards a victory for Preston Village.
Although the outcome wasn't decided until there were only 7 balls left, PV were always in control with 7 wickets in hand.
Overall a poor performance.
Too many players on the day did not do the basics & we were punished by a well organised & experienced team.
All of our wickets with the exception of Kenny's were the result of poor shots, not good bowling.
Our catching was awful, at least 6 chances were dropped & other possible catches simply weren't attempted.
The bowling was adequate, & on another day Arslan could easily have taken 5 wickets. His figures of 9 overs, 1 wicket for 9 runs does not do him justice, but he was without question Boroughmuir's man of he match.
If we are to avoid relegation we will all have to improve on our individual performances.
I would hope to see as many as possible at practice on Wednesday.
There will be changes to the team next week & I hope that the players coming in will seize the opportunity to secure a regular place in the team.
Keith.