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10 Men Ellon Dump Dunecht (Again!)
On a overcast day in the Gordon Park, Ellon completed their first league match in over a month and, despite only having 10 men, comfortably saw off a battling Dunecht side. In a strange twist, Ellon have only failed to put out a full team on one previous occasion this season and it was also against Dunecht. The Ythanside team registered a win then too. Dunecht must wonder what would happen to them if they ever had to face a full strength side!!
Ellon skipper Middleton lost the toss and was surprised to be asked to field first. The game started off slowly on a pitch that was very low and slow. Opening batsmen Radford and Brand looked very comfortable in the face of Ellon bowling attack and, whilst never causing the scorers too much trouble, never gave a chance away in the first 19 overs, moving steadily onto 33 before Brand missed a straight one from Anderson and was dismissed lbw. Radford responded to the loss of his opening partner by stepping up a gear and looking to score with every shot. First with Worsley and then with Duncan the aussie opener pushed the score on quickly and Dunecht were soon past the 100 mark. The score was 131 when the veteran Duncan was dismissed by the father and son combination of Jon and Hayden and Dunecht were beginning to look set for a very high score. A couple of overs later Radford completed his century, which was notable for the way in which he did not play one false stroke or give one chance, and he received warm applause from both sets of players. Unbelievably, this was his last contribution with the bat as the very next ball he tried to play an agricultural shot over the top and was clean bowled by Andersonn with the score on 147 off 43 overs. Anderson took two more wickets in the last three overs to help limit the Deeside team to 154 for 6.
A bountiful Station Hotel tea was then taken.
Ellon opened their reply in the same steady fashion as Dunecht had started, with Churchill and Montgomery carefully getting a good look at how the pitch was playing. The score was still only 10 off seven overs when the pair decided to step it up, moving the score swiftly past the 50 mark in the next seven. It was then that Dunecht hero of the day Radford struck, catching the outside edge of Montgomery’s bat as the Ellon opener was caught behind with the score on 57. This brought Barrett Jnr to the crease. The new batsman was soon showing why he thinks he is one of the best players in grades cricket, dispatching the poor Dunecht bowlers to all parts of the ground. When Churchill also started to open up the writing was on the wall for the bottom of the table strugglers. Dunecht made 4 bowling changes in the 12 overs the two batsmen were together, but could not find the answer to the attacking strokeplay of the Ellon men. In the thirtieth over of the Ellon innings Churchill scored the winning run to seal a very easy victory.
Ellon have now put their terrible start to the season behind them, and whilst they can no longer chase the title they should be able to push themselves into a respectable league position. They are also still in both the Aberdeenshire and Turriff Cups, so a bit of glory is still there to be had.
By Scott Middleton