From the Dressing Room: West Weather Ayr Storm to Secure Vital Victory
Graeme Etheridge reflects on West's hard-fought away victory at Ayr this weekend.
After a week of record-breaking temperatures and the hottest June week ever recorded in Scotland, the first XI were faced with very different but no less challenging weather conditions at Ayr on Saturday for an eagerly anticipated 4th v 5th clash.
With an early start arranged to accommodate West’s Race Night that evening, the players made the trip to the coast with the skies growing ever greyer as they approached Burns Country. Captain Page won the toss and elected to field first, hoping to take advantage of a slightly sticky wicket that looked to improve over the course of the day.
West got off to the perfect start, with Pillay removing Swanepoel LBW in his first over for the second time this season, and it wasn’t long before Fry got in on the action as McElnea chipped one to midwicket. Pillay then struck again in the powerplay, inducing a drive from Jones who was well caught by Strachan at gully.
Despite the wickets falling around him, Ayr’s overseas pro Dale Phillips was still looking to play positively and had already found the boundary multiple times, including a massive six over mid off. However, looking to repeat the shot the next ball, he could only find an edge to Malik behind the stumps to give Pillay his third victim.
By this point, the weather had also deteriorated, the stiff breeze now approaching a gale and brief but heavy showers making life difficult for both teams. Woodhouse and former West player Miller, along with Maxwell, took advantage of some loose bowling to accumulate runs and lift Ayr from 46-4 to 175-6 before Fry returned to bowl Woodhouse for 43, the top score of the innings. Wickets then fell quickly, with only Scott McElnea providing much further resistance before Fennah and Strachan struck in consecutive overs to dismiss Ayr for 210.
Page and Strachan opened the batting for West, watchfully navigating some good bowling from the Ayr openers, but still managing to put away the bad balls and they moved to 35-0 after 8 overs. However, Walsh then struck twice in two balls to bring Pillay to the crease. Having navigated the hat-trick ball, overseas and captain then looked to consolidate and build a platform for the chase, steering West to 95-2 at drinks. As it so often does, the break in play led to a wicket, with Page falling to the tidy off spin of Phillips for 31. Malik replaced him and looked to accelerate the scoring but also fell to Phillips a few overs later.
Pillay brought up his 50 but was caught in the 36th over with the score 137-5, West requiring 74 from the last 14 overs with Iqbal and Mills at the crease. Both batted solidly in the face of accurate and disciplined bowling, pacing their innings well and adding 60 in the next 10 overs to leave just 17 needed from the last 24 balls. They then took 7 from each of the next two overs, taking West within touching distance of the win. Iqbal looked to finish it in style but was excellently caught at short cover by Phillips, departing for a well made 43.
The task of finishing the job was left to former skipper Fennah, who duly obliged in typical calm fashion hitting a two through cover, West winning by 4 wickets with Mills 28 not out at the other end. The victory took West to third in the table at the halfway point of the season having won five of their eight completed matches so far, and will look to continue their good run of form next week at GHK.
