SCOTTISH SALTIRES' John Blain has urged supporters to keep faith in the national side after a big cricketing summer got off to the worst possible start with a thumping defeat to Lancashire Lightning at the Citylets Grange yesterday.
The English county strolled to an eight-wicket victory within four hours after they bowled the hosts out for just 73 in the opening Friends Provident Trophy encounter of 2008.
They then knocked off the runs needed in just 11.5 overs with England s
tar Andrew Flintoff hitting the winning runs with a majestic straight six off Dewald Nel's bowling.
As the sun was out a large crowd had assembled for the match, but the Saltires' failure to compete was disappointing. They now face a double header on the road at Derbyshire and at Old Trafford against Lancashire next weekend before Durham Dynamos come to Edinburgh on Sunday, May 11.
Blain said: "We have a lot of big matches coming up and it was massively disappointing that we did not compete with Lancashire. The supporters must understand there is a massive gulf between amateur and professional sportsmen and that was shown during the match. We are always going to be up against it in this tournament because of the lack of time we get to spend together as a squad, but we must do better than we did against Lancashire in the two games this weekend."
It all started to go wrong for the Saltires' early on when new professional Ed Cowan was clean bowled by James Anderson off only the fourth ball of the match.
The Australian had been in fine form on Saturday too, smashing 163 runs as Uddingston beat Poloc in the SNCL Premier League, but he could not follow it up yesterday. Skipper Ryan Watson then followed Cowan back to the pavilion to leave the hosts on 7-2 and when Carlton opener Fraser Watts got himself run out trying to go for a suicidal second run it was 17-3.
It never got any better and, although Majid Haq stuck around for 64 balls to make a dogged 23, extras was the second highest scorer with 12.
As well as Watts' run-out there were two others: for Gavin Hamilton and Watsonians' skipper Gordon Drummond, and Blain, who made 11, knows that individual errors need to be eradicated.
"Let's be honest, we were up against a top-quality bowling attack, but you cannot go throwing away wickets like we did and expect to be able to compete.
"The guys were all coming in quite cold given that we had only played one match against the MCC at Lords and the fact that a number of Saturday's domestic fixtures were off. It is hard to turn it on from ball one when you haven't had time in the middle, but overall we were pretty poor," the former Penicuik man said.
Seamer Tom Smith, who was later named man of the match, was the pick of the visiting bowlers with 3-14 while James Anderson took two and Flintoff bowled a tidy spell as he aims to regain full fitness. He ended up getting through seven overs and taking 0-19.
Defending such a modest total as 73 the Saltires' bowlers knew they were up against it, but Blain and Nel bowled well at the start of the innings. Nel, the ex-Heriot's man who is at Greenock this term, took the wickets of openers Mal Loye and Gareth Cross for nine and 19 respectively, but then the Freddie show began. Flintoff hit 27 off just 23 balls to see his side home alongside skipper Stuart Law who scored an unbeaten 14.
Blain knows that the players in the team are now under pressure following this defeat and the loss to Namibia in the ICC Intercontinental Cup earlier this month, but he has sounded out a word of warning about promoting too many youngsters too quickly.
Scotland under-20s won all nine of their matches on their recent tour to South Africa and the likes of Watsonians' opening batsman Ryan Flannigan have been touted for the full side.
Blain stressed: "There is a lot of healthy competition and no one should be cemented in the team, but the step up from the under-20s into the senior team is huge.
"We are now all looking forward to Derby on Sunday and Lancashire next Monday so we can get this loss out of our system."
The full article contains 755 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
