Practice Voyage

In direct contravention of the team's original constitution, which expressly forbids practice sessions, there will be a knockabout at Kingholm 2 tomorrow (27th April) from 10.00 am for a couple of hours.

A previous communication from Admiral Dean stating a cast-off at 14.00 hours was merely a cunning manouevre to outfox enemy craft.  Anyway, I can't make the afternoon and have the kitbags stowed away on the afterdeck of my C4.

Midweek AGM Highlights

Further to the recent call-to-arms for the new season issued by Rear Admiral Dean, you might be interested to know of the terms of combat recently endorsed by the Midweek League AGM High Command at Nunholm.

New Teams

A completely new team, The Panthers, will be playing out of Kingholm I with a mainly Asian crew and Castle Beattie will be returning after a year in dry dock to repair leaks. There are also two mergers as follows:

• Kingholm XI + Irving Meadow = Kingholm Meadow
• Kirkmahoe + Annandale Insurance = Kirkmahoe Annandale Insurance

This would seem to leave Shipwrecks as the sole founder member of the League continuing to sail.

League

With 12 teams available for action, the move to split the League went ahead so that there will be two sections of six teams playing each other twice.  We landed in Section II playing on Thursdays against Healthpros, Lockerbie, Dumfries Colts, St Michael's Youth (now John Walker & Son) and Burgh Boys.

N.b. however that it was agreed that hands can play for one team in either pool.  There was some opposition to this by those who felt it is open to abuse*.

Cup

The format of the cup competition remains the same, except that the first round will be played half way through the League season.  We ended up in the group with Kirkmahoe Annandale Insurance and Kingholm Meadow, which should guarantee us plain sailing into the Plate semi-final.

Rules and Restrictions

The bowling and batting restrictions brought in last season will remain in place.  It was suggested that home teams could mark the run-up restriction and that Captains could agree the judgement of wides before games commence.

*Note: The Laws of Cricket state that anyone joining the game after being absent for more than fifteen minutes after the start cannot bowl until the amount of time by which they were absent has elapsed.

There are also some recent changes (some of them obscure) to the Laws of Cricket which can be viewed at: http://www.lords.org/mcc/laws-of-cricket/law-changes-2013-explained/  No doubt these will the subject of lengthy discussions in The Ship Inn.