3rd XI Lose Despite Some Good Efforts

As it was abundantly clear that no play could take place at the scheduled venue it was straight back into the cars and out to South Gyle recreation ground where an artificial wicket awaited the teams.

Skipper McAulay lost the toss again so it was he and Nigel Duthie who strode out to the middle to get the Glens innings underway. As in recent weeks McAulay got into his stride quickly with Duthie being more watchful. Very soon however these roles were reversed and it was Duthie who took the lead hitting several boundary fours. He in fact was to hit ten of them altogether whilst bringing up an excellent half century.

Unfortunately for the Glens he was out immediately afterwards with the total on 85. This brought debutant Chris Humphreys out to join McAulay. Chris looked very assured and competent but was very unlucky to pick out the fielder at deep square leg with a well struck shot shortly afterwards.

As in recent weeks this lead to a few more Glenrothes wickets falling quickly with the skipper being among them for 35. Chris Yarwood once again however used his experience to good effect in making 21 including four boundaries.

When their 40 overs were up the visitors score of 138 for 6 looked a bit below par unless of the course the bowlers bowled well.

Veteran Dave Snook took 1st use of the new ball for the Glens and struggled to find his line and length early on, but he soon settled in to it and beat the bat several times. Humphreys at the other end bowled with good pace and bounce and made a fearful mess of Frank Bell's stumps in his 2nd over which gave the visitors the early breakthrough they needed. Unfortunately though the home batsmen settled in to their rhythm quickly and punished anything at all wayward to keep their score ticking over nicely.

When young Daniel Graveling was introduced to the attack he too bowled with good pace and took a couple of wickets in his excellent opening spell of 5 overs. As in recent weeks Richard Cox too bowled a good 8 over spell and was very unlucky not to take a wicket.

By this time however the homesters only needed 15 to win with only 3 wickets down, so McAulay decided to change things around in a last gamble to turn things around for the visitors by bringing himself into the attack to bowl spin. This turned out to be a successful ploy with Saha, Farrell and Jones all bowled in the space of his 3 overs. This meant best Glenrothes bowling figures of 3 for 3 for the skipper

It was however all too little too late as Morton secured their 4 wicket win a short time later. In truth though, Glens were always about 30 runs short of a competitive total and this fact wasn't helped by several dropped catches at crucial points.

The plus points however were undoubtedly the batting of Duthie, McAulay and Yarwood with Humphreys, Graveling, Cox and McAulay all doing a good job with the ball.