The team came up 19 runs short of a win in the Aberdeenshire Cup match against Bon Accord at Mannofield on Sunday.

Things got off to a good start for Ellon as skipper Wolridge-Gordon won the toss and asked Bon Accord to bat, confident that his bowlers would be able to take advantage of the hard, bouncy wicket.

It seemed to be an inspired decision in the first few overs as first White and then Greenfield had the openers Meres and Awan dancing around in the crease.

The picture looked even more rosy in the fifth over when Awan, looking to break the shackles, chopped a seaming White delivery onto his stumps with the score on 10.

Even better was to follow five overs later when Greenfield tempted Meres into feathering an edge to the wicket keeper Rintoul. This left Bon Accord up against it at 26 for 2 off the first 10 overs. The Aberdeen team then suffered another stinging blow when skipper Win pulled a rank long hop from White straight into the hands of Watson at square leg.

At 32 for 3, Ellon were in total command of the game and with only one recognised top order batsman left, Mirza, Bon Accord needed its middle order to help bail them out. Luckily, for Bon Accord this is exactly what happened and the game was turned on its head by some belligerent batting from Bijapurapu and Mirza.

Their surge of runs coincided with the resting of Ellon's White and Greenfield, as Wade and Barrett took their place and bore the brunt of the attack. In the space of eight overs the score shot up by over fifty runs to 88 before Mirza spooned a return catch to Barrett in the 20th over.

Ellon then looked to have regained the advantage when in the very next over Watson, on for the oddly ineffective Wade, enticed Bijapurapu to hit a towering catch to Barrett on the long on boundary just nine runs short of an impressive half century. This then led to another period of rebuilding for Bon Accord as the new batsman, Saffiq and Patel, looked to keep the scoreboard ticking over until they could launch a final assault on the Ellon bowling.

The pair put on a further 30 runs before they suffered an incredible communication failure and Patel was run out by a direct hit from White after being left stranded half way down the pitch by his teammate. Both teams knew that this was a vital period of play, with twelve overs to go and only four wickets remaining.

After the interval Ellon knew that it had the batting to be able to reach the set target of 190 to win. However, Borstlap was trapped by Mirza off only the second ball.

In his very next over the same bowler then forced Craig White into a false shot which led to him being beautifully caught by Herringshaw at short cover. At 6 for 2 Ellon were now staring into the abyss of yet another cup final collapse.

Fortunately for them they had the legendary Barrett and the steely White at the crease. With a grim determination the pair started to drag Ellon back into the game.

Both Barrett and White looked to punish the bad ball whenever possible, whilst playing everything else with extreme caution. The score moved steadily along for 18 overs until, with the score on 85, White over stretched coming forward to an offspinner from Saffiq and lobbed the ball back to the grateful bowler.

This left the game exquisitely poised at 85 for 3 off of 22 overs, and both sides very much in the match. However, two pieces of cricketing theatre changed the game entirely. The first was an amazing catch by Saffiq on the square leg boundary off bowling of Bijapurapu to dismiss the devastated Barrett for 68. The second incident, of a much more farcical nature, happened two overs later when Aman was run out going for a suicidal single with the score on 146.

While these dismissals did not finish Ellon's victory hopes, it did dent them significantly.

Wolridge-Gordon had his stumps rattled by Malik after looking quite set, and the writing was on the wall for the Ythansiders.

Watson and Middleton combined to push the score onto 170, but when Middleton was stumped off the bowling of Malik it signalled the end for Ellon as the wiley Bon Accord stalwart then proceeded to snap up the final two wickets of Wade and Rintoul in the same over.