Cricket: Saltires out to ensure win is no false dawn

Published on Tuesday 19 May 2009 09:42

SALTIRES cricket hero Fraser Watts today targeted a second Friends Provident Trophy win at the citylets Grange tomorrow insisting that a nine-wicket triumph over Kent Spitfires could be no flash in the pan.

Watts earned man-of-the-match honours with an innings of 45 from just 15 scoring shots as the Scots shot down the visitors by nine wickets with 19 balls to spare in a rain-affected encounter.

Looking ahead to the visit of Somerset, Watts said: "We want to carry on from this and win a game in the full 50-overs-a-side format."

That was a reference to how Saltires had achieved a revised target of 77 from a maximum 18 overs after their bowling attack, with Sean Weeraratna to the fore, had restricted the county to 65-4 after 19.5 overs.

Watts added: "What was pleasing was to get a score (based on four 4s and two 6s) that swung the game. It was a performance that mattered. Of course, it helped being the shorter format but we have to show now this was no flash in the pan."

The importance of the bowlers in fully exploiting the wicket after Saltires captain Gavin Hamilton won the toss could not be underestimated but the batsmen, with the skipper opening alongside Watts, still had to steer the side home.

"We had a licence to hit but had to decide whether it was best to nudge the ball around, " said Watts. "The plan was to look for the bad ball and if it was in our arc, hit it."

The tactic worked a treat with Watts getting his highest score against an English county since making 56 at Leicester in May 2007.

In spectacularly going for his shots, the Carlton ace smacked 21 runs off an over from Simon Cook which accelerated the score from 18 to 39-0 and put the Saltires firmly in charge.

Watts' two sixes came from copybook straight drives. He added: "To get 25 per cent of the required runs in one over made things a lot easier although I was quite annoyed to get out before the end."

It would have only been fitting if, in helping compile what was the Scots' first win in 11 competition starts since triumphing at Lancashire last year, Watts had seen the job through even if he was dropped in the deep having made a 38-ball 45.

As it was Hamilton hung around for an unbeaten 18 and saw Ryan Watson, 15 not out, seal victory with a boundary through mid-wicket.

Hamilton said: "We have some lows, some semi-highs and some pretty good performances here and there. But that's as good as it gets in terms of all-round performance. We were due one. It was just a case of who it would be against.

"We thought we had built quite a bit of momentum on Saturday against Warwickshire after the drubbing by Middlesex two days earlier and that's how it worked out.

"Winning wasn't massively high on the agenda, it was about pulling the side together and keeping going forward. But it was (still) nice to get the win and we are not going to rest on that.

"We have still got to hone individual skills and keep up with the pace cricket is going at. Sitting on one win is not going to be the way forward. We are looking forward to finishing off the campaign with a win over Somerset and there's no reason why we can't.

"You can't take away from how we fielded and bowled to get in that position and from the first ball we put pressure on them.

"We showed character. You make your own luck."

It was Edinburgh-based Weeraratna, who plays for Greenock, that made the early breakthrough when he yorked Joe Denly on the way to a highly impressive 2-14 from a five over stint.

Ten runs later Weeraratna stuck again when he forced Martin van Jaarsveld to pop up a catch to Hamilton at mid-on.

With storm clouds gathering the dismissal of Rob Key – twice "out" to earlier no-balls – as Jan Stander sent down a snorter of a delivery and the stumping of Geraint Jones by Simon Smith off Majid Haq put the Scots in prime position ahead of the rain delay.

Smith's stumping of England's Ashes winning wicket-keeper was a repeat of his feat in the reciprocal match at Canterbury recently and there were to be no slip-ups down the home straight although few could have predicted quite how comfortable the charge would prove to be.

Indeed, there was an added bonus in the fact that the Saltires could claim to have been sharpening their skills ahead of next month's world Twenty20 championship, while preserving

their record of having won at least one fixture in every limited over campaign against county opposition, but never before beating Kent.