A combined Glenrothes XI welcomed Broomhall to Gilvenbank Park on Saturday for a 30 over friendly played on the Ramsay Oval. The match ball was kindly sponsored by Colin Dryburgh Painter and Decorator - thank you so much for your generosity and support of our club.
With seven under 16 players in the home team, it was great to see the team put challenges up against Broomhall throughout the game.
Batting first, Glenrothes were bowled out for 129 after 22 overs with the main contributions coming from Karthik Coppisetty (24) opening the innings, a quick fire 23 from Haris Khan and 35 from Sufyan Ahmad. Hynd with 3 for 7 from 3 at the top of innings took the honours on the bowling front.
The remaining 8 overs were batted out to give both teams more match experience, with Glenrothes topping up their final score to 181 - Coppisetty and Khan again batting well.
There was to be a good bowling and fielding performance from Glenrothes in the second innings, with five wickets taken in the first 12 overs - two each to Anas Tanveer and Bimal Nalupurakkal Balan and one to Urvish Patel. But underpinning the innings was opener Ali Gudgin who kept the scoring rate up before retiring on a well made 42.
From there it was skipper Ieuan Ward to control the innings, as he batted strongly to see Broomhall past the target score to win on 131 for the loss of 6 wickets in the 26th over. They weren't able to boost the run rate to get to the 30 over score (of 181 for Glenrothes), finishing on 176 thanks to Ward retiring on 41 and then the returning Gudgin blasting a few more runs - though Sufyan Ahmed did try to claim highlights through breaking a stump with a bowled wicket.
All in a good game with great credit to Broomhall for the way they approached the game in supporting the Glenrothes youngsters throughout. The home side may need to learn to reign in their youthful exuberance in appealing though!