SALTIRES cricket skipper Gavin Hamilton has branded as "an idiot" the pitch invader who disrupted his team's Friends Trophy victory push against Warwickshire at citylets Grange.
Chasing a total of 242, the Scots looked well set at 131-3, especially as the preceding over had gone for 11 runs when a mystery invader, later identified only as "Ginger" by a group of travelling companions from the English Midlands, made an entirel
y inappropriate entrance by running out into the middle and stealing a bail.
After a five-minute delay there was general consensus that momentum had been fatally disturbed and Hamilton pulled no punches, saying: "It is a fact, not an excuse, that we were flying, scoring at six or seven an over, then all of a sudden some idiot comes on to the field.
"There's a five or ten-minute break and then they get a wicket (Neil McCallum). That sort of thing happens when things are not going your way. It was definitely one that got away."
In normal circumstances, to describe an eventual 50-run defeat (the Scots made 187 but the target was slightly adjusted due to rain) as "one that got away" would be beyond hyperbole.
But these were no ordinary circumstances, with the bail-thief allowed to evade minimal security and escape over a boundary wall with his quarry.
Ultimately, the incident had to be put down to experience and in these troubled times, security-wise, Neil McCallum, caught for 22 almost as soon as the dust had settled, was able to give matters some perspective.
"I suppose if anything was going to happen it was as well that a bail was taken," said McCallum, clearly relieved that there had been no violence or vandalism.
The need for extra vigilance on the boundary is clearly a matter for others and McCallum said there were still positives that can be taken into pool B matches against Kent, today, and Somerset on Wednesday, also in Edinburgh.
"We were doing so well when the guy ran on and took a bit of the momentum we had achieved away," he said. "It was frustrating, one of those things, a shame. We needed to improve from a shocking defeat by Middlesex a couple of days earlier and we did.
"The downside was that too many guys got in and then were out for 20s or 30s when, to chase a total like 242 we had to be producing scores of 70, 80 or 90.
"At times we really did think it was going to be our day but things happened such as Smudger (Simon Smith) smashing a ball to the boundary only to fall to a really good catch, but there's a good feeling we can do something against Kent and Somerset."
Just as the Saltires deserve credit for pulling themselves up by the bootlaces, it would be wrong to portray events on Saturday as a pure hard luck story.
Hired hand Cameron Borgas became bogged down so that his top score of 35 came from 85 balls. Opener Fraser Watts did magnificently to take the fight to the county with a quickfire 20 only to present a tame return catch.
Similarly, it was a Jekyll and Hyde display from Watts' Carlton colleague Gordon Drummond who bowled Jim Troughton and Rikki Clarke in the space of four balls then returned for the final overs and conceded 26 runs, although Dewald Nell only contributed half his allocated stint.
Captain Hamilton accepted it hadn't been flawless but understandably put the emphasis on greater discipline and control. If Craig Wright, after a magnificent 2-28 off ten overs with the ball hadn't been controversially caught on the boundary for 29 – spectators implied the fielder had crossed the rope – then an upset could have occurred.
Hamilton revealed: "The scoreboard got the overs mixed up which was why Drummo, a great trier, had to bowl the last of his ten overs from the opposite end into the wind."
As for Borgas's apparent tardiness, Hamilton said: "We set a plan to keep a couple of wickets in hand and chase at a rate of five or six overs at the close but the loss of a couple of wickets changes things.
"When Cameron was in, their spinners began holding things up on a pitch that got slower.
"In the case of Dewald, he was too fast for the pitch which was why he was withdrawn and Warwickshire were keen to get their spinners on as early as possible.
"Yes, our batting went a bit pear-shaped towards the end but we were going a lot harder in all forms of the game."
That the Saltires had regained a competitive edge had to be beyond dispute, although a three-year search for a win over county opposition in the Capital continues.
