GREENOCK will hope to continue their good form of recent weeks when league leaders Dumfries come to Glenpark.
Since mid-June, the local side has played six matches in all competitions and lost just once, which was to the then league leaders Kelburne.
Dumfries defeated Glasgow Accies last weekend and moved to the top of the league table as Kelburne faltered by losing to Langside.
The south of Scotland side is having a fine season having won nine out of ten league matches played, so Greenock will have a huge task to overcome a side which is full of confidence.
Chris Bellwood is the Dumfries captain, and Greenock supporters will remember that he played at Glenpark for two seasons, 2010 and 2011, before returning to play for his home town team.
Bellwood leads a team which has an all-round strength and which has won most of its matches by large margins. However, when Greenock played at Nunholm earlier in the season, Dumfries won by just three wickets in a closely contested match.
Greenock batted first and scored just 107 runs before being bowled out after 31.5 overs. However, Dumfries struggled to overtake the Greenock total and were six wickets down for 73. A seventh wicket partnership of 28 runs took them to the brink of victory. Then Greenock claimed a consolation seventh wicket before Dumfries scrambled across the line to gain victory in the 29th over.
Bellwood leads from the front and, as opening batsman, has amassed 350 runs, hitting one century and also notching two fifties.
He is ably supported by a number of others, most notably South African, Johnathan Van Zyl who is second highest run-scorer in the league with almost 400 runs.
Dumfries also have a strong bowling attack and have three players who feature in the top 12 wicket-takers in the Western Premiership Two league bowling stats, The evergreen Alan Davidson tops the south of Scotland team’s group with 21 wickets while Callum Reynolds-Lewis is just two wickets behind on 19.
Greenock field a strong side, with captain Greg McDougall in positive mood. He said: “The team has come on to a good spell of form over the last number of weeks and the match on Saturday should be a good contest. Most of our regular 1st XI players are available and we are looking forward to avenging the loss suffered at Nunholm in early May.
“Our batting performances over the past month have been very good with plenty of runs being scored. Our bowling and fielding too has been good and we have gained wins which have put us into a comfortable mid-table position and our aim now is to climb up towards the top of the table.”
Last Saturday, young Aryan Sanghera repaid McDougall’s faith in playing him as an opening bat when he scored 30 runs at Hillhead.
But it was Angus Tolhurst’s 115 runs, supported for a time by Sanghera’s dad Sam with 28 runs, which put the game out of Hillhead’s reach as Greenock went on to record their highest league score of the season, 233 all out with the last ball of the innings.
Greenock’s bowlers then rattled through the Hillhead batting line-up with Connor Nowlan picking up five wickets for just 12 runs from his ten overs. The Glasgow side were bowled out for 95 after 32 overs thanks to a particularly impressive bowling performance which leaked only nine extras.
The team will be: GJ McDougall (capt), HR Briggs, PJ Bryceland, C Calder, K Maroof, CJ Nowlan, CS Pandher, AS Sanghera, SS Sanghera, E Stewart, AS Tolhurst. The match will start at noon.
Greenock’s 2nd XI, Glenpark, play Stenhousemuir 2nd XI (The Tryst) at The Tryst in Larbert on Saturday at noon. The team is M. Ahmad, M Ahmadzai, S Bhumanawala, Z Dilsoz, F Dinarkhel, I Khan, U Mansoor, E Norris,P Robertson, D Sharma, V Yadav. 12th man H Safi.
The 2nd XI side has won six out of the nine league matches so far completed and sit fifth in the league while the Stenhousemuir 2nd XI are second with seven wins from nine matches.
Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U
