Overcoming late call offs and a couple of lost drivers, Selkirk got back to winning ways on Saturday with a comfortable victory at Holy Cross in Edinburgh. (Scorebook below)
Having won the toss and asking the hosts to bat, captain G.Fenton (1-18) teamed up with elder brother Michael (4-16) to remove the top four within 10 overs. The pace of the bowling was a little too brisk for the openers and both were out edging to the slips, G.Fenton taking the pick of these catches two handed above his head at second slip for the first of M.Fenton’s four wickets.
K.Paterson rolled back the years with a spell which bamboozled the opposition and culminated in taking the final wicket and allowing Graham, taking the keeper’s gloves as a late replacement behind the stumps, to add his second catch. This was added to an earlier neat take standing up to the bowling of Henderson (3-26) to remove Holy Cross top scorer Quinn (25). Bowling 6 maidens from his 8 overs, R.Banks will be frustrated that he only took one wicket for Selkirk but he was to play a fuller part with the bat.
The Holy Cross bowlers were similarly miserly early on but having only moved to 21 off the first 10 overs the souters were at least still intact with regards to wickets, with K.Paterson providing a solid patient defence perhaps missing from previous games. Paterson was given LBW to Reiss, the only bowler to take wickets for the hosts, but while he had only added 7 runs, Paterson had allowed G.Fenton (41) to pick up pace. A decision to push the field out made it likely that the captain was going to take easy 1s and 2s and carry his bat. However, he was undone by a rising ball which had him half way through his shot and looping the ball to short mid wicket, allowing Reiss to follow through and take an easy catch off his own bowling.
By this time, R.Banks (21*) was already looking comfortable with the bowling and field settings, and needing 15 to win when joined by M.Fenton at the crease, he scored 14 of them, finishing off with a clip down to the fine leg boundary for the winning runs.
With home games providing an advantage to most teams in the division, largely due to player availability for away trips, this was a good fixture to win and Selkirk will need to repeat the feat next week with trips to St Boswells on Thursday evening for a 20/20 fixture and a return to Edinburgh to play Marchmont in the league on Saturday.
