Heriot’s forced to dig deep to earn Scottish Cup glory against Carlton

Mark Watt sends down a delivery during Carltons innings. Picture: Donald MacLeod

They chased down their victory target of 143 in the 47th over to take the trophy back to Goldenacre.

Batting first in hot conditions, Carlton had made 18 runs before Tom Simpson was out for two, bowled by Elliot Ruthven. Arun Pillai followed him back to the pavilion, being trapped lbw by Hayes van der Berg, and when Fraser Burnett was stumped by Elnathan Meiri off the bowling of Michael Shean, the Grange Loan men were 52 for three.

South African Corne Dry came in to join former Ireland international Rory McCann at the crease and he settled things down with a couple of well-placed boundaries.

Dry was looking good but was then bowled by Shean for 17 and Carlton were 79 for four with just less than 20 overs of their allotted 50 left.

McCann was next to go, caught and bowled by Ryan Brown for a hard-fought 23 and when Ali Shah went to the same bowler Carlton were 88 for six.

Will Hardie and skipper Ali Evans took the score up to 122 for six from 45 overs before Evans was out for 18, bowled by Callum Stuart, but Hardie finished on 27 not out as Carlton posted 142 for seven. Shean had the best figures of two for 28 for Heriot’s.

With experienced seam duo Evans and Dry to open the bowling for Carlton they would have hoped to get off to a flying start. And they did just that, Evans having Peter Ross trapped lbw with the score on six. Elnathan Meiri and Mark Watt took the score up to 34 before the former was caught by Chayank Gosain off the bowling of Pillai. It was then 63 for three in the 23rd over when Watt was out to Gosain and the match was in the balance.

Heriot’s progressed to 90 for three after 30 overs, leaving them to get 53 runs from 20 overs to win.

Van der Berg and Shean (24) put on a valuable 48 runs for the fourth wicket before the latter was out to Gosain.

When skipper Morton and Chris Ashforth were out soon after, Heriot’s needed to dig in to win and they did.

Van der Berg finished on 40 not out and Brown made 12 not out as they won by four  wickets.