Weather puts stop to comeback chance
Meigle travelled to play Edinburgh side Carlton on Saturday looking to stop a run of recent league defeats.
The visitors were bowling first under leaden capital skies and the home side made a solid start by taking the total to 43 from the first 10 overs.
Charles Clark struck again with his very first delivery to remove McCann and that started off a very impressive period for the visitors, with the Meigle captain and Iain Stewart using the swinging conditions to their favour to keep the scoring rate down and reduce Carlton to 116-4 after 30 overs before the players had to come off for rain.
The break helped Carlton more than Meigle as the batsmen put the foot down when play resumed.
Some good shot placement and running by Hugo Southwell and Umair Mohammed was aided by some average Meigle fielding as the total continued to build beyond 200.
By this point the fielders and bowlers were really struggling with the wet ball and how the umpires allowed play to continue through persistent was baffling to some.
Southwell and Mohammed pressed further and found the boundary regularly
towards the end of the innings.
Southwell was finally dismissed for 79, bowled by Sohail Ahmed, but Mohammed continued on to the end and finished unbeaten on 76.
It was a fine innings from the former
Forfarshire skipper as Carlton totalled 282-6 at the end of their 50 overs.
The rain abated a little at the break as Meigle openers Saeed and Tom Duff came out to begin the reply.
However, Duster struck first ball as
Saeed edged through to the safe hands of Southwell at second slip from the bowling of Omar Ahmed.
It was a theme that was to continue as five of the top six batsmen were caught at slip or gully as the Meigle top order struggled against the swing and seam of Ahmed as he had four wickets for only six runs with Meigle toiling at 33-5 from 11 overs.
With the clouds continuing to threaten around the ground Carlton cleverly switched to spin at both ends in an attempt to get 20 overs bowled to make the game count. They found a bit of resistance further down the order as Josh Edington continued on his form, finding the cover boundary a few times with some glorious shots.
He was backed up by some lusty blows from Sohail Ahmed at the other end.
With the rain getting ever heavier the umpires convened at the end of the 19th over but decided to continue play as Sohail tried his best to delay the inevitable by stoking one up the hill into the neighbouring gardens for a huge six.
The umpires finally decided the rain was too heavy after 23 overs with Meigle’s 81-7 giving Carlton victory by 146 runs on the DLS scoring method.