Young Saltires torn apart by ruthless Lions

YOUTHFUL Scotland were mercilessly mauled by the Surrey Lions in a one-sided CB40 clash at the Oval yesterday. Apart from a maiden Saltires half-century from Josh Davey and a promising debut from Arbroath's Calvin Burnett, there was little positive to salvage from this seven-wicket drubbing.

Eyebrows were raised even before the start when the selectors chose to omit Calum MacLeod, who would at least have brought some county experience to a team whose average age was just 23.

Surrey, inspired by a brilliant 96 from Steve Davies, cruised to their 197 target with seven overs to spare. Scotland made a quick breakthrough when home skipper Rory Hamilton-Brown skied Gordon Goudie's delivery to Davey at deep mid-wicket.

But when Davies drove Matty Parker to the offside boundary three times in the next over, the pressure that the Scots hoped to build was released.

Jason Roy played his part in a 128-run stand which put the Lions in control. Roy eventually holed-out for a 62-ball 60 but Davies went on to reach 96 with 11 fours and two sixes.

Earlier, the Scotland innings was lifted only by Davey's half-century and a cameo of great promise from Burnett. Former Saltire Yasir Arafat made the breakthrough when he found the edge of Flannigan's bat and Steve Davies did the rest. Maiden, toiling to make a place at the top of the order his own, appeared to have broken the shackles when he hit Arafat for successive boundaries wicket. However, he departed for just 20, trapped in front by Tim Linley. Ewan Chalmers and Richie Berrington both flattered to deceive as the Saltires' slumped to 88-4. Chalmers stroked one beautifully-timed straight four off Matthew Spriegel, while Berrington swept the same bowler powerfully to the deep mid-wicket rope.

However, Chalmers nicked Spriegel to the keeper and Berrington miscued a steepling catch to Tom Maynard in Jade Dernach's comeback over.

The one partnership of relative substance saw Davey and Preston Mommsen add 49 for the fifth wicket, the latter hitting an attractive 30. Majid Haq was run out when he failed to answer Davey's call for a quick single, but the Middlesex man shrugged-off the loss to complete his highest score for the Saltires, reaching 50 from 71 balls before departing soon after. The acceleration was finally provided by Burnett, who showed good footwork to despatch Chris Schofield for a straight four and belligerence in doing something similar to Arafat on three occasions.

He remained unbeaten on 31 from just 26 balls as the Saltires closed on 196-9 - a respectable total but never likely to be a winning one.