Largo started their 2025 season on Saturday finally after last week’s postponement with a friendly welcoming St Andrews University Students to East Drive. Brent Bentley captained the side and after winning the toss asked the Uni side to bat first.

Largo opened with H.Sneddon and MacDonald, with both bowling well on their first effort of the season, MacDonald unlucky to have 2 drops off his bowling, though Spicer and Payne for the Uni side were quick to punish anything loose to the small boundaries on the day. The pair continued on against the change bowlers of Udayan and Barclay before the partnership was broken on 88 with Udayan bowling Payne for 50. This sparked a comeback for the Largo side taking a further 3 wickets before drinks with Udayan taking a further wicket clean bowled coupled with Barclay taking 2 including a good high catch by Bentley.

Largo would continue to ring the changes in the bowling and it was Cusick who would take 3 further wickets in a spell of 3/10 to reduce the visitors to 116/8. This bowled out the 9 of the opposition on the day however looking for further practice the Largo side allowed the Uni side to bat on and they would continue on to great effect progressing the score to 215/9 at the end of the innings.

In reply Cusick and Sneddon would open the batting and showed both were in good early season form as they blunted the accurate Uni bowling to move to drinks on 82 without loss, with Cusick in particular showing more power and freedom in his play than he was able to show last year due to injury. Chasing the target set, Sneddon would be the first to go for 36 followed soon after by Bentley for 13 and Cusick for a top scoring 44.

Rowley would finish the innings not out for a high tempo 36 in partnership with Miles (10) before Coates would finish things with two 4s off his 2 balls to leave the home side on 164/5 off their 40 overs.

This was exactly the pre-season effort the Largo side were looking for with a good challenge to prepare the side before the league season next weekend with all involved getting some valuable time to practice their skills.