Sandy Strang: Struggle to find neat fit for Smith's old gloves

The 20-year old 'Sparky' made his full Saltires debut in last August's Mannofield double-header against Canada, followed by the televised showpiece game against Australia, and a mere three games into this year's CB40 competition he has been 'rested'.

"Marc Petrie is progressing well in his development," said Saltires head coach Pete Steindl euphemistically, "but we feel he would benefit from a few more games with his club side and the National Academy."

So over the Bank Holiday weekend, instead of locking horns with Hampshire and Kent, rubbing shoulders with Test stars Neil McKenzie, Dominic Cork, Makhaya Ntini, Robert Keys and Geraint Jones, Petrie had to content himself with the less rarefied domestic pastures of Shawholm, Bothwell Castle Policies and the SNCL.

Petrie can partly blame the Gilchrist syndrome. Aussie keeper Adam Gilchrist shattered the conventional wisdoms by smashing over 5,000 Test runs at an average of 47 and more than 10,000 ODI runs, average 35 – and all at an astonishing tempo of 81 per 100 balls in Tests, and 96 in one-dayers.

Selectors worldwide got greedy. Your keeper had to bat – and fast too. No more shibboleths about a specialist stumper who might deliver some useful lower-order cameo runs. The old England Knott v Taylor keeper/bat v keeper conundrum was now decidedly pass.

Closer to home, Petrie can also point the finger at Colin Smith. Before his Saltires retirement last June, the 6ft 5in Aberdeenshire policeman had claimed his rightful place in the pantheon of great Scottish cricketers with consistently fine glovework allied, crucially, to some outstanding batting, hitting over 3,700 runs at an average of 24.

Smith was generally regarded as the outstanding batsman qua batsman in the entire ICC Trophy in 2001. Petrie is admittedly only starting out, but has managed just 16 runs in his five innings to date.

Then there's the Jack Russell factor – the wicketkeeper as on-field orchestrator, controller, extoller, agent provocateur, irritator supreme. Russell redefined the basic terms of wicket-keeping. He stood up to nearly everyone. He demanded that he be the hub of all fielding activity, that the ball be constantly recycled through him. He incessantly imposed his personality on opposition batsmen. It worked. Artisans became winners. Eight one-day trophies were annexed.

But it's another thing altogether to ask a young inexperienced keeper to make such pressing demands on far more senior colleagues.

Grange's ebullient Simon Smith seemed the most likely heir apparent to his namesake, but has been bedevilled by injury, and his 18 Scotland innings have yielded just over 200 runs. So in their search for a run-scoring keeper, the selectors have returned to West's Dougie Lockhart, Scotland's fifth most capped player, who has been in splendid all-round SNCL form, and is an underrated gloveman in the Alec Stewart mould. Lockhart, 34, is superbly fit, and his best years may still lie ahead of him.

Meanwhile, good luck to Sparky on his journey back. A fighting 50 and three victims at Shawholm on Saturday was an auspicious start.

Kelburne and Ferguslie renew historical rivalry

THEY'RE the epitome of sporting rivalry. Often rugged, visceral, ill- tempered affairs, none too aesthetically pleasing, but rarely wanting in passion. Securing temporary local bragging rights is no light matter. Cue cricket's derby clashes.

Witness the likes of Heriot's v Watsonians, Clydesdale v Poloc and Freuchie v Falkland – and now, once again, Ferguslie v Kelburne. The two big Paisley rivals first met back in May 1887 when Ferguslie, backed by the Coats thread family, took the field against already established Kelburne, who allowed them to field 17 players!

Back in the 1950s more than 5,000 spectators jammed into Meikleriggs to witness the home pro, Indian Test star Vijay Manjrekar, put their closest rivals to the sword.

In recent years, though, while Ferguslie prospered in the upper echelons of the Premier League and in two Scottish Cup finals, Kelburne, first ever Scottish Cup winners in 1966, plummeted out of the SNCL, with only a late-season rally in 2005 preventing further ignominious descent into Western Union Division 2.

The pendulum has now swung back, and Kelburne's return to the National League coupled with Ferguslie's two recent relegations saw the pair do battle again last week for the first time in over a decade. A large partisan crowd on a gorgeous sunny day revelled in some fine batsmanship from home pro Prav Mullick (85), before former Ferguslie favourite David Harper (59) kept the Whitehaugh men's hopes alive till late on.

How good to see this historical contest back on the cricketing calendar.

Miller seeks decorum

BREADALBANE, Glendelvine, Mayfield, Meigle, Rossie Priory – they are some of the most beautiful and romantic cricket settings on earth. But the purported rural idyll has just been shattered by the internecine warfare. It's handbags at 22 paces.

Richard Miller, president of the Strathmore & Perthshire Cricket Union, has written a stern warning letter to all member clubs. It's starkly entitled "The Spirit of the Game". It deplores current on-field behaviour and "the calculated abuse of players and umpires" and denounces the deployment in lower Divisions 2 and 3 of "ringers", whose disproportionate domination is allegedly spoiling the enjoyment of the weaker majority.

If attitudes do not change voluntarily, warns Miller ominously, then "your committee will do everything it can to sort out the problem."

Watch this space.