Cricket: McIntyre's batting heroics not enough to save Heriot's

Published on Monday 14 September 2009 09:52

FOR much of the past decade Gavin McIntyre has been a stalwart of Heriot's cricket, not least with his unsurpassed number of dismissals behind the stumps.

But, against Forfarshire at Arbroath on Saturday, it was as a batsman that McIntyre came close to achieving perhaps his most important feat for the club.

In hitting a defiant 83 and sharing in a 91-run partnership with professional Cammy Farrell (46), McIntyre led the Heriot's battle to preserve a record that had seen them have an unbroken link with the top flight Lloyd's TSB Scottish Premiership before ultimately falling just short.

Having restricted Forfarshire to 258-5 partly through the bowling of Euan Harrison (3-62), who had been called up from the seconds, Heriot's suffered a blow in the fourth over of their reply.

Skipper and prolific run-maker Steve Knox for once fell cheaply to a catch at backward point and with the ex-Scotland opener gone in the fourth over it was always going to be that bit harder for Heriot's.

Youngster Qasim Ashraf rose to the challenge with a spirited 29 and when McIntyre and Farrell came together with the score at 82-3 in the 21st over, Heriot's began to get back on course.

By the 46th over Heriot's required 56 runs to win with four wickets still standing. But with two batsmen departing in the 47th over it was effectively all over for Heriot's, who ended up 14 runs short with nine wickets down.

A meeting was scheduled last week for tomorrow at Heriot's – win or lose – to determine their immediate future and skipper Knox admitted: "It is obviously a bitter blow to go down and we will sit down and work out where we go from here."