Selkirk welcomed Peebles County to Philiphaugh on Thursday hoping to get revenge for a loss in the same fixture last year. Both sides were weakened by availability but Selkirk welcomed back a couple of wandering players with Harry Murphy playing his first game of the year for Selkirk and Alex Beveridge making the trip home to see his family sponsor the match ball and pull on his whites.
Peebles won the toss and asked Selkirk to bat and in the absence of others Todd Dekker opened with Greg Fenton. Both looked to score from every ball and while Dekker struggled with his timing Fenton pulled away and reached 50 off 36 balls before lobbing a pull shot to A.Asmal. Dekker also reached his 50 and was starting to strike the ball cleanly. The Peebles bowlers struggled to pose a threat but Niall Burns did provide some edge, removing first Bob Wilkinson and then Harry Murphy.
Dekker reached 50 with a six to cow corner but was to repeat this on nine other occasions, the stand out of which was a hook over the square leg boundary in to the club car park. Dekker reached his first ever century with another 6 (this second 50 taking just 16 balls). Dekker (116*) punished the final bowling finishing 4/6/6 and setting the visitors 209 runs for victory.
Dekker’s feats will likely affect club 20/20 record book and on an evening of dominance the club will also need to check bowling achievements in 20/20 cricket to see if anyone gets close to the figures returned by Harry Murphy on Thursday evening. Murphy’s lolloping action and threat of turn was almost immediately successful as Pete Caddick (31) fended him off for a single. But Caddick’s partner D. Gray had less luck and was clean bowled. Murphy set up the hattrick ball by repeating the feat with No.3 and will still be thinking of the next ball shaving the off stump as he travelled back up north on Friday morning. However, he did then remove batsman No. 4 to have three wickets in his first over.
When Murphy delivered another wicket in his next over, Gregor Borthwick dashing in for a great catch diving forward at short mid off, he probably didn’t think he would be taken off. Peebles were struggling to score with only Caddick offering resistance but other bowlers were given an opportunity and Iain Gardiner took the wicket of Asmal.
However, captain for the night Daniel Heard succumbed to let Murphy bowl the final over and the bowler was rewarded with that craved fifth wicket as he bowled P.Walker (4) with his penultimate ball. Murphy also finished the game on a hattrick ball with the dismissal of J.Brophy to bring the Peebles County innings to an end. For the records Murphy finished with 6 wickets for the loss of just 7 runs from his three overs.
