GREENOCK play West of Scotland at Partick on Saturday, hoping for their first competitive win.
The side has already played and beaten West this season, in a pre-season friendly, but West have won two out of the three Western Premiership One matches they have played while Greenock have yet to get off the mark.
Impressively, the Glasgow side have beaten two of the more fancied sides in the league, Clydesdale and Prestwick, so Greenock’s trip to the Hamilton Crescent ground will provide a serious challenge for the local side.
Greenock will welcome the return of opening batsman Tom Polkinghorne who has been in fine form and notched up a half century in each of the opening two Premiership One matches. Work commitments caused him to miss last Saturday’s match against Ferguslie and his availability for the West match will be a boost for the team.
The Greenock pro Rahul Dalal has yet to find the large competitive innings of which he is capable. However, this Saturday could be his day and if he does bat well, and for a substantial part of the innings, then Greenock could well emerge with a first win of the season.
Teenager Lukas Fischer-Keogh has demonstrated that he can score runs and at a good pace. Against Dumfries, in the opening league fixture, he scored his first 50 in a senior competitive match for the club.
Gregor Chambers is another who has shown some early season form with the bat. He has been in double figures in each of the Saturday league matches which have been played, and last Saturday he narrowly missed scoring his first half century of the league season with 45 runs against Ferguslie.
Chirag Pandher, at number eight in the Greenock line-up last Saturday, demonstrated some of his talent with the bat and formed a fine partnership with Chambers. The pair put on 37 runs with Pandher hitting 18 including a massive six into Fox Street.
Last weekend there were a number of good signs in the bowling department. No fewer than eight players bowled for Greenock with captain Greg McDougall and pro Rahul Dalal both picking up wickets along with other good performances.
If fully fit, Gregor Chambers will provide a pacey opening attack for Greenock and Chirag Pander showed he could be a useful bowler for the team.
West of Scotland had John Oliver and Kess Sajjad to thank for their winning total against Prestwick last Saturday. Oliver scored a fine 66 not out and former Poloc player Sajjad made 41 runs as one of the side’s opening batsmen.
It is perhaps with the ball that West may be considered most dangerous. John Oliver and the evergreen Dave McNulty will be likely to be their opening bowling attack and they often give little away. Against Prestwick they took seven wickets between them.
Kess Sajjad chipped in with two wickets to round off a good day for him personally and a fine win for the Hamilton Crescent side.
If Greenock can keep these three bowlers at bay and bat well deep into their innings, then winning points might just be brought back down the M8 to Glenpark on Saturday evening.
The team will be: GJ McDougall, HR Briggs, PJ Bryceland, CS Calder, GM Chambers, RR Dalal, LC Fischer-Keogh, CS Pandher, T Polkinghorne, SS Sanghera, EA Stewart. Scorer: R McGregor. The match will start at noon.
Greenock’s 2nd XI are against Clydesdale 4th XI at Glenpark on Saturday afternoon. The team will be from: E Ahmad capt, M Ahmadzai, S Chaudhary, A Farooq, T Forrest, J Hutchinson, U Mansoor, E Norris, J Nowell, C Prabhu, H Safi, S Safi, D Sharma. The match on Saturday at will start at 1pm
Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U
