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Wolton still upbeat after Nairn County suffer defeat to Ross County


By Andrew Henderson

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Nairn County Cricket Club’s Dave Wolton believes on another day, they could have won last Sunday’s friendly match against Ross County.

Nairn opening batsman Dave Walton. Picture: Callum Mackay
Nairn opening batsman Dave Walton. Picture: Callum Mackay

Stand-in captain Wolton saw his side lose out by 23 runs in a high-scoring affair at the Links, with both sides putting on over 200 with the bat.

The difference between the two teams turned out to be their strength in depth in the batting line-up.

County’s openers Duncan Scott and Chris Blake scored 32 and 33 respectively, while Graeme Carney and Steve Embleton each scored 50 and Daryn Lucas got 49.

For Nairn, Martin Bronkhorst, Luke Stevenson and Steven Annis each took a single wicket.

With the bat, the hosts started well with a partnership of 83 before Doug Fairlie (39) was dismissed by Renato Belli.

Wolton was the only player to pass 50 for Nairn, with four other scores of 20 or above enough to get Nairn close to, but not past, County’s total of 228.

For Wolton, who also opened the bowling, his side leaked a few too many runs – and he reckons if they were a little tighter a victory could have been there for the taking.

“We let ourselves down with our bowling,” Wolton admitted.

“A lot of the chances didn’t go to hand, normally you would expect the balls that went in the air and over our slips to go to hand.

“We barely dropped anything, because we didn’t really get any catches apart from my one.

“Normally you would get five or six catching chances, and then if you drop them you’ve only got yourself to blame, but we didn’t get any.

“I didn’t bowl very well at the start, only three overs and I went for quite a bit, so if we had been a bit tighter with the bowling, we would probably have been alright, because we batted well.

“I think both teams are stronger batting than they are bowling, and that probably shows by the fact we had over 400 runs scored.”

Ross County captain Graeme Carney was happy to get over the winning line, and despite having a similar feeling in the field, he was pleased that everyone was able to contribute.

“We maybe leaked a few too many runs, but we managed to restrict them towards the end,” he said.

“With the run rate, I think we were always quite comfortable, but I think we should have kept them to 20 or 30 runs less than that.

“We batted quite deep, I don’t think anyone got less than 30. We had a couple of 50s and one 49, so I’m quite chuffed with that.

“If we do that every week, we’d have a good chance against most sides in the league.”


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