Portcullis vs Methlick 1st XI 20.07.2024 

On Saturday, Methlick made the trip to Duthie Park for a must win game against Portcullis having beaten them at Lairds earlier in the season. A strong line up was bolstered by the return of Steve Murphy but the batting strength on the day came from an unexpected source.

Duthie Park always provides runs with its slick outfield and with this in mind today’s captain, Tom Acton, decided to bat first. Unfortunately the usual run providers all failed miserably on a batting strip that was both slow and with an indifferent bounce. Woodhouse scooped one to mid-off, Acton did the same to mid-wicket and both Hordley and Cordiner were also caught cheaply. Murphy was extremely unfortunate to get one that completely failed to bounce and was LBW for 7.

In the middle of this opener Crutchfield, continued on at a circumspect pace. The wickets slowed up as Daniel Reeve came out to the middle and supported the Butch as he reached his maiden half century with a magnificent drive to the boundary.

He eventually fell bowled for 53 but along with Addison and Reeve pushed the final score to 161 when a sub-100 had earlier seemed on the cards.

The Portcullis innings was bolstered by some poor fielding and after tight opening spells from Crutchfield, Moore and Hordley runs leaked from the always reliable Addison and the pace of Acton was like manna from Heaven as the batsmen smacked him to the boundary for over 10 an over.

Batsmen Brandsma relished in all of this and hit an excellent undefeated 68 as Portcullis crossed the line with an over to spare leaving Methlick deep in relegation woes needing a very strong finish to the season in order to stay in Grade 2.

By Mark Woodhouse