Livingston travelled to Linlithgow on a lovely early summer evening, for a local derby in the first round of the Masterton Trophy.

Captain Jazim Sohail won the toss and decided to field first on the basis that we had a slightly weakened team. Our youngsters Sadhil Jindal and Jack Jarvis opened the bowling in the powerplay (only 2 fielders allowed outside the ring) and did a good job but were caught out by how tight the ruling was over legside wides. Jack in particular was getting a lot of swing. The Linlithgow openers got off to a solid start and began to take control. Jazim tried a number of bowlers to try and slow the flow of runs, but nothing worked until he brought himself on in the 11th over, when A Raven popped a simple catch to Bobby Bowering at short mid wicket. They had put on 79 and were looking to accelerate. Jazim's spell did slow things with his first 3 overs only going for 13.

The Livi fielding gathered a bit more energy in the second half, having been pretty poor up to this point, however Linlithgow picked up the scoring rate, taking 30 off the next 3 overs before Neil Jarvis came on and took father and son pairing of Johnny & Chris Miller in successive overs reducing the hosts to 123-3 after 16, Bobby again taking the catches. Travis Chandler was brought back into the attack for the 18th & 20th overs, taking 2 for 1 run in his third over, both clean bowled, however the 19th went for 12 and the 20th for 4 including a run out. So Linlithgow finished on 159-6. It was a bit of a come back but was going to be a tough ask to chase down.

In reply Bobby and Travis got things off to a steady start, scoring 15 off the first 2, however struggled to really get away from the bowling. The 6th and 7th overs decided the match and knocked the stuffing out of Livi. First Travis was bowled off an inside edge with the score on 29, then 2 balls later Jazim was adjudged LBW and in the next over Adarsh Brar was caught. Neil and Bobby stayed together for another 4 overs before Bobby fell (see picture for evidence!), however any impetus had been lost and from then on it was really batting to see the innings out, finally finishing on 74 all out in the 20th over and a comprehensive defeat.

Next Thursday sees us hosting Edinburgh Accies in the Active Edinburgh Trophy, so please come along and support.