Winning finale to the Firsts season

Fauldhouse Victoria were the visitors to an overcast, sultry East Drive on Saturday when Largo's 1st.XI played their final league match of the season. Largo were keen to finish the season off on a high especially after their abortive trip to Falkland the previous weekend where the match was belatedly cancelled due to an unfit pitch.

Winning the toss and with rain forecast for later in the day Largo skipper Rintoul opted to bat first on a green track Finding himself back in the pavilion for a "duck" after only 4 overs Rintoul must have wondered whether he had made the right decision. With the metronomic Danny Law and Manaharin opening the bowling for Fauldhouse Largo struggled to score and found themselves on 49 for 2 at drinks the unfortunate Kinnear having been fortuitously caught from the bowling of change bowler McIlduff.
However with A. Warrender anchoring the innings other Largo batsmen lead by M.Khan began to open their shoulders pushing the score to 150 all out from 43.3 overs.
Gillin(32) and S.Warrender(30) impressed not only with their power hitting but with their hard running between the wickets.

After a decent bowling performance in which Manaharin took 3 for 19 and Law only conceded 10 runs from his 9 overs Fauldhouse must have thought they at least had a chance of chasing 151 especially with Scotland u15 and Largo opening bowler Brown absent having called-off in the morning. Any hopes of a win the visitors may have had soon evaporated with F.Khan and Gillin producing an immaculate spell of bowling reducing Fauldhouse to 14 for 3 after 10 overs. The luckless Khan bowled 5 overs for 5 runs while Gillin in what was probably his best spell this season snapped up 3 wickets for 9 runs.

Replacing Gillin with S.Warrender gave no respite to the opposition batsmen as he produced a fine spell of aggressive bowling getting the ball to swing prodigiously in the humid conditions claiming the wickets of the dangerous McDonald and Mahon. With Fauldhouse 5 wickets down Rintoul brought Scott into the attack replacing Khan. This proved to be an inspired change as Scott bowled Kelly with his first delivery: Fauldhouse 29 for 6. In conditions ideal for his out-swing bowling Scott removed the Fauldhouse tail finishing with a coveted "5fer"- 5 wickets for 9 runs from 4.4 overs. Fauldhouse all out for 48 and a decisive Largo win by 102 runs to finish the season.

Skipper Rintoul will find it difficult in allocating his "Man of the Match" points with candidates in Scott for his 5 wickets, S Warrender and Gillin for their all round performances, A. Warrender for anchoring the innings and good work behind the stumps and M.Khan for a cameo innings which lifted the Largo batting.

Overall this has been a good season for Largo's 1st XI after being relegated from Division 1 last year. This season has been a period of consolidation finishing near the top of Division 2, winning 10 of their 15 matches, in a position to push for promotion next year.