Scorecard

Match Report That lightning never strikes twice in the same place can be disproved both by the piece of roadway beside the Norwood car centre along from the Arns and by Clackmannan County 1st XI. For the second week in a row the county side were two players short when it came the time to leave for their game in Haddington on Saturday. One of the players had suffered a break in at his flat earlier in the morning and the upshot was that Clackmannan traveled to Haddington with ten players. That coupled with the high unavailability for the first team this week, six of the sides regulars being unable to play, gave captain for the day Gordon Oliver a stressful day out. Haddington won the toss and decided to bat and with Zahid Hussain still carrying an injury, the Clackmannan opening attack was in the hands of Matthew Booth and Tipo Sultan. Thirteen extras off the first four overs gave the Haddington side a good start but Richard Hiley and Peter Talbot were coping admirably without and extra help from the bowlers. When Talbot was LBW to Sultan for 17 the score was on 39 and only nine overs had gone. John Hiley joined his namesake and Clackmannan's problems began to grow. Gordon Oliver used all his main bowler to no avail. In what proved to be a stroke of brilliance Gordon brought on son Alan, promoted from the second team and Alan made the breakthrough. Alan had Richard Hiley caught by Noor Jhangir for 61 but by this time Haddington were 216 for 2 with 5 overs to go. John Hiley had been hitting freely and had scored 105, including 14 fours, before he to became a victim of young Oliver, bowled in the 47th over. Gray and Verner completed the Haddington innings undefeated adding 21 and 13 respectively. The final Haddington total was 257 for 3 with a massive 40 extras in the total.

The Clackmannan batting opened with Gordon Oliver and Zahid Hussain and these two put on 66 for the first wicket. Hussain caught off Gray for 14, Oliver, who was batting well, was joined by Shazad Azhar and these two began to settle into a scoring rhythm. Azhar was run out for 23 valuable runs but Clackmannan were coping with both bowling and run rate. Tipo Sultan came and went for zero caught at point by Hilley off Bell. Second team regular Alan Oliver batting at five showed the way forward stabilizing the innings after his father was bowled by Hiley for an excellent 70. Chris Harney was unfortunately run out, for 1, before he could get into his stride. Contributions by Mahindra Patel(14) and Matthew Booth (16) were slowly drawing the Clackmannan side nearer to their target. Wicketkeeper Richard Passe and Noor Jhangir both scored three before the two second team players were sent back to the pavilion. Alan Oliver batted out the Clackmannan innings for 38, an excellent debut for his first selected game for the first eleven. The final Clackmannan total of 225 in 48.1 overs, not enough to overcome Haddington. A game of might have been's the most regrettable of which being the lack of another player to complete the batting lineup at this crucial stage. The Haddington extras total was 15, slightly more than a third of the Clackmannan total, the extra 25 runs the difference between the two scores. A promising performance from the weakened Alloa side, as with several of this years games, with a bit of luck, both off and on the field, things might have been different. Next weeks game is at home against Grange 3 on Saturday 19th June.