GREENOCK travel to the west end of Glasgow to meet Glasgow Accies at their New Anniesland ground this Saturday.
The Glenpark side will be seeking to get back into winning ways after the disappointment of losing to league leaders Dumfries last weekend. Second-bottom Accies should provide the opportunity for the local side, currently sixth, to move up the league table.
Earlier in the season, Greenock gained a very comfortable eight-wicket win over Accies at Glenpark. Following that encounter, Greenock have an important three weeks of fixtures against Langside (H), Kilmarnock (H) and East Renfreshire (A).
All of these sides sit close to Greenock in the table and achieving positive results against them would hoist the Glenpark team up to a much more comfortable position.
In the match against Accies in May, it was Greenock’s two Australian amateurs who were the top performers with both bat and ball.
Accies were bowled out for 116 in 36.2 overs with Angus Tolhurst giving the Glasgow batters a particularly difficult time with his left arm spin as he claimed four wickets for just eight runs from his ten overs in the middle part of the innings.
And opening pace bowler Connor Nowlan with 3 for 31 was also key to the destruction of the Accies batting line-up.
Then in reply, it was Nowlan with 68 not out and Tolhurst 21 not out along with Harry Briggs, 20, who took Greenock to a well deserved win.
This Saturday, Briggs is unavailable along with Chirag Pandher from last weekend’s XI.
The Australians remain in good form, and there have been some positive signs of improvement from a number of others in the team in recent weeks.
Aryan Sanghera has shown that he can become a top order bat with 30 runs against Hillhead two weeks ago at Hughenden and Ewan Stewart has played important roles with both bat and ball. Cameron Calder too has the ability to be an important all-rounder for the side.
Accies had a poor start to the league programme. Their opening six matches all ended in defeat and it took until mid-June for their first win to be achieved, which came against Irvine under the Duckworth Lewis Stern scoring system. Two more wins followed, against Renfrew and Hillhead.
And although Accies lost to Dumfries on the first Saturday in July, the team got back into winning form last Saturday. Despite scoring just 119, Accies managed to bowl out Langside for just 68.
Runs are not easy to come by at New Anniesland as the outfield is often kept much longer than most grounds because the cricket playing area is partly shared with rugby and the ground staff favour the oval ball.
Accies have struggled to score well on their own ground this year and last Saturday’s 119 was their highest total at New Anniesland by 30 runs with the exception of the 159 runs scored in defeat to Kilmarnock at the end of May.
There are no stand-out players in their side with only one having managed to score a single fifty in the season so far and only one bowler who has taken a total of more than ten wickets from matches in the league programme.
But Greenock will need to be on form if a win is to be gained as confidence is on the up at New Anniesland following the team’s four wins from their last five matches.
Greenock 2nd XI (Glenpark) lost a well-contested match against second top team The Tryst through in Larbert last week. On Saturday, the team will be keen to beat Clydesdale 4th XI in what will the first of two consecutive week encounters against the Glasgow side, because of an unusual league fixture programme set up.
1stXI team: G McDougall, C Nowlan, A Tolhurst, A Sanghera, C Pandher, S Pandher, C Hempsey, E Stewart, U Mansoor, V Yadav, K Maroof
2nd XI team: M Ahmad, D Sharma, P Robertson, A Mansoor, I khan, S Bhumanwala, E Norris, F Dinarkhel, S Hussain, Z Dilsoz, R Kumar, H safi 12th man, M Ahmadzai 13th man
Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U
