Durham Crush Sorry Saltires

Durham were the visitors to the picturesque ground in Scotland for the National Cricket League Division 2 encounter.

Durham won the toss and decided to have first bat on the Raeburn Place deck.


Durham soon were in trouble as the wicketkeeper P Mustard was dismissed for just 3 before a 58 run partnership between N Peng and V Wells restored order to the innings.

N Peng fell for a fine 46 at just under a run a ball in the middle of a disciplined bowling display from the Scottish captain C Wright who took 1/39 from his 9 overs. G Muchall joined V Wells out in the middle and took a immediate liking to the bowling as he scored briskly, the Scottish captain tried numerous bowling changes without success before the young spinner R Haq accounted for the veteran V Wells for a solid 40 from 53 balls.

However the wicket seemed to spark Durham into action as G Muchall and G Pratt eased the scoring rate up and added a fine 91 run partnership in just over 50 minutes, before G Pratt was caught and bowled by the seventh bowler used by Scotland overseas star J Kent. J Kent then went on to remove a further two wickets in his 5 over spell which was successful while being a tad expensive.

G Muchall continued in the late flurry off wickets to reach a brisk 87 from 97 balls before being cleaned up by the returning P Hoffmann with the last ball of the innings.

Scotland required 268 to win from 45 overs

Scotland required 268 to win and just the first 21 minutes of the reply was needed to decide the winners, as Scotland crumbled to the express pace of Shoaib Akhtar who took 4 wickets for just 6 runs in his first three overs to leave the Saltires in a dire position of 4/6 in reply to the now monster target of 268.

However with the immense talent of R Dravid at the middle Scotland weren't quite out of the running, however even "The Wall" couldn't save the day as just 1 minute later the Scots lost another wicket and the score at 5/6 was turning into a embarrassment. Two more wickets fell within the next half an hour to leave the host precariously placed at 32/7.

However C Wright and R Haq came to the Scots rescues in a 90 run partnership that added a slight respectability to the scorecard, while C Wright played the anchor innings of 43 (72) R Haq was given the licence to play his natural game, blasting a quick fire 55 not out, not bad for a guy with a previous best of only 16!

Despite another quick fire effort from J Brinkley the match was well lost and the spirited effort was ended with the last ball of the 36th over.


Match Summary


Durham: 267/7 G Muchall 87, N Peng 46, V Wells 41; J Kent 3/38

Scotland: 153 R Haq 55*, C Wright 47; Shoaib Akhtar 4/34, N Phillips 3/41, A Davies 2/15


Match Result: Durham beat Scotland by 114 runs

Posted by Richard