East Kilbride 68 all out from 18.1 overs (0 points)
Greenock 72 for 1 wicket from 12 overs (25 points)
GREENOCK gained their first league win with a comprehensive nine-wicket away victory over East Kilbride.
The result provided a welcome 25 points for the Glenpark side and moved the team up to seventh in the Western Premiership Two league table.
After losing the first two matches, against top-of-the-table sides Langside and Dumfries, it was third time lucky for the Greenock team who were once again travelling away from home.
East Kilbride lost opening bat Craig Smith, caught-and-bowled by Cammy Calder, for just seven runs in the fourth over. Calder made a second breakthrough with the last ball of the eighth over when he had Adeel Khan caught by Toby Matthews for 14 with the score on 37.
The loss of the two early wickets was clearly a massive blow to the East Kilbride team as the remaining eight wickets fell with little resistance as the batting order imploded.
With the score on 41 for 3 in the ninth over, the experienced Stewart Kampman became right-arm off-spinner Toby Matthews’s first victim of the afternoon. And his wicket was very closely followed by four more.
Firstly, Cammy Calder picked up his third wicket when he knocked back the stumps of Shahid Abbasi at the start of the tenth over. The East Kilbride middle-order danger man was removed second ball without scoring.
Then, Toby Matthews picked up two wickets in two balls during the 11th over. Gavin Meikle was caught at backward square leg by Cammy Calder with the third ball of the over and fourth ball South African amateur Driaan Swanevelder was returned to the clubhouse clean-bowled with a ‘golden duck’ to his name.
Matthews picked up his fourth wicket when East Kilbride captain David Doyle was given out leg-before-wicket (LBW) at 48 for 7. Harish Negi and Mo Afzaal took the home score to 61 before Chirag Pandher came into the bowling attack and, with his very first ball, removed Afzaal, bowled for seven runs.
Greenock lost wicketkeeper Adam McGuirk midway through the 17th over when he suffered a nasty facial injury which required hospital treatment. After the stoppage for McGuirk’s injury, and once Chirag Pandher had taken over behind the stumps, Matthews picked up his fifth wicket when he had Shahid Mahmood trapped LBW.
The East Kilbride innings ended with the first ball of the 19th over when Imran Chaudhary was run out by a smart piece of fielding from Nikhil Kadyan, who made a direct hit of the stumps as the batsmen attempted a quick single to short mid-wicket.
Toby Matthews with five wickets for just eight runs from 6.1 overs was Greenock’s top bowler while Cameron Calder also made an important impact with his three wickets for 24 runs in the early part of the East Kilbride innings.
Greenock made an enforced change to their batting line-up because of McGuirk’s injury and opened with Nikhil Kadyan and Shailesh Prabhu. The partnership looked to be progressing quite steadily with 16 runs on the board midway through the fourth over. But Shailesh Prabhu (5) got a faint edge to a delivery from David Doyle and was caught by wicketkeeper Craig Smith standing up to the stumps.
But that wicket proved to be the only success for the Lanarkshire side as Nikhil Kadyan and Aryan Sanghera took control and eased Greenock to a very comfortable first league win.
Kadyan was the main scorer in the 57-run unbeaten partnership which took Greenock to victory with the last ball of the 12th over. He scored 44 not-out in his innings which included six boundaries and which brought the game to an end with a six over the long-on boundary. Aryan Sanghera played a fine back-up role with 14 not-out
Next up is the first home match of the season at Glenpark against league leaders Uddingston next Saturday.
Narrow Defeat For Glenpark XI
Glenpark XI 171 for 9 wickets from 40 overs (3 points)
Woodhall East Kilbride 173 for 6 wickets from 37.1 overs (25 points)
Greenock’s Glenpark XI narrowly lost out to Woodhall East Kilbride at Glenpark on Saturday afternoon following a very closely contested Western Championship Two match.
The Glenpark XI batted through their allotted 40 overs to score 171 for the loss of nine wickets. The main contributions came from Prabjot Singh, 36, Dave Sharma 36, Eddie Ahmad 22 and Rakesh Kumar 16.
In reply, the visitors just managed to pass the home score in a close finish to the match. Main scorers were Vishnu Balachandran 51, Nasim Malik 31 and Nayma Sheikh 25
Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by The Ethos Group
