Strathmore Cricket Union: the first 90 years a history 1928-2018

169 factor in 2005 in that it allowed the League structure to consist of two Divisions of 10 and 10, and two of 8 and 8, and the Union was justly proud of its ability to keep cricket going in such unfavourable circumstances over such a wide area. The season also saw the death of the Draw as a result in the Union. From now on, all matches would be win or lose unless they finished with scores level in which case the result would be a tie. 2005 did see some sort of interest rekindled in the sport at a national level when England after a couple of decades of gross under-achievement marked by a death wish and a massive inferiority complex about Australia, at last hit back. The Ashes of 2005 was one of the best series of all time, and it was good to hear the general public, even in Scotland, talking about cricket once again. Television had of course changed as well in the 21st century. There were now many channels and much sport to be enjoyed on the dedicated sports channels. In some ways this was a great help to cricket, but in other ways, there was a sort of a glut of possibly too much of a good thing. Test Match cricket was also beginning to lose out a little, for there was now a split beginning to develop between one-day cricket and the longer game, soon to be defined as “white-ball cricket” and “red-ball cricket”. However 2005, and the memorable Ashes series arrested that decline to a certain extent, at least. Perthshire, as we have said, had fallen from the eminent position that they used to occupy in the old Scottish Counties Championship, and indeed had only a few more years to live, but there was still some life left in the old dog, as was seen when Perthshire won the Premier Division and Perth the First Division. In what was a reasonably good summer, Perthshire won 12 games out of the 14 played with Overseas Amateur A Fazil averaging 101.00. This was as nothing, however, compared to the 236.25 Average of Mannofield’s Kruger Van Wyk