CRICKET — Greenock Gain Important Win Over Former Champions

Prestwick 196 for 7 wickets (9 points) after 50 overs

Greenock 198 for 4 (25 points) after 47.2 overs

GREENOCK gained an important win over last season’s champions, Prestwick, and moved up to eighth position, just above Ayr and Dumfries, as the team fights to retain its Premier League status.

Prestwick captain Shazad Rafiq won the toss at the Henry Thow Oval, opted to bat and opened the innings with himself and Fazal Jawad. The pair made a steady start for most of the first four overs, but, with the last ball of the fourth over, and the score on 16, Rafiq (2) got a nick to a ball from Neil Flack and the chance was smartly held by wicketkeeper Chris Hempsey standing up to the stumps. Young overseas player Jacob Steber from Australia joined Jawad out in the middle and the Prestwick innings moved along very slowly for the next 15 overs.

Jawad was the principal run-scorer as the partnership added just 31 runs before Jawad, having scored 30 runs, was bowled by Greenock’s recently-capped Scotland under-15 international Sean Fischer-Keogh. In the following over, Steber became Greenock’s third wicket when he was caught by Rod Mountford off the bowling of Laurens Smit. Steber scored just seven runs from 53 balls and was at the crease for a full hour. By the mid-innings drinks break at the end of the 25th over, Prestwick had moved on to 66 but had lost a fourth wicket, that of David Carlisle (5) stumped by Chris Hempsey off the bowling of Laurens Smit.

Needing to seriously increase their run rate in the second half of their innings, Prestwick looked to former Irvine CC professional Sachin Chaudhary, and others in their batting middle order, to get their innings moving. Chaudhary and Tom Fleet took the score to 87 before Greg McDougall, in his third over, captured the important wicket of Chaudhary, caught behind by Chris Hempsey for 20. Greenock continued to keep a fairly tight grip on the Prestwick run scoring and, after 40 overs, the Glenpark side looked to be in a quite commanding position as their Ayrshire opponents had only 117 runs on the scoreboard, although no further wickets had been lost.

But, as has happened all too often, the last ten overs became a period in the game where Greenock failed to continue to contain their opposition scoring and Prestwick added a further 69 runs for the loss of just two more wickets. Fleet was the key to Prestwick’s late innings revival, scoring an unbeaten 49, but he was well supported by Scotland international Mitchell Rao (22) and Craig Morrison (23) as the home side reached 196 for the loss of 7 wickets at the end of their 50 overs. Greenock used six bowlers with Neil Flack 2 wickets for 30 runs, Laurens Smit 2 for 30, Greg McDougall 2 for 45 and Sean Fischer-Keogh 1 for 34, the wicket-takers.

Needing almost 200 runs to win at a rate of nearly four runs an over, and with a side which was missing several first team regulars, Greenock opened up with Neil Flack and Chris Hempsey, an untried partnership put together at the top of the order because of usual opener Harry Briggs’s unavailability. The pairing seemed to be working until the third ball of the seventh over with the score on 21, when Flack edged a delivery from Ross Patterson and was caught by wicketkeeper Tom Fleet having scored 13 runs.

The early wicket of Flack was Prestwick’s only joy for a very long time as Chris Hempsey and Saurabh Bandekar built a very fine partnership which put Greenock into a potentially match-winning position. The team score reached 50 in the 19th over and then passed 100 in just the 29th over. The partnership itself between Hempsey and Bandekar reached 100 runs in the 34th over but was brought to an end in the 35th over with the score on 126 when Bandekar was caught by Jawad for 56 off the bowling of Patterson, who had just returned to the Prestwick attack for a second spell.

Greenock continued to move towards their target, but with 50 runs still needed, and nearly 12 overs still available, Prestwick gained a double-wicket breakthrough. Patterson picked up his third wicket when he had Rod Mountford (10) caught behind by Fleet with the score on 147 and, with just two more runs added, Chris Hempsey was bowled by Jawad having scored a fine 61 runs.

With a mainly young and inexperienced tail end to the Greenock batting order, the responsibility of getting Greenock to the winning line lay squarely on the shoulders of overseas amateur Laurens Smit and Greg McDougall, and the pair did not disappoint. Smit took the lead, and with McDougall playing a very important supporting role, the pair took Greenock to a quite impressive win over the 2017 champions in the 48th over. Smit was unbeaten on 30 and McDougall not out 6. Ross Patterson with 3 wickets for 37 runs from 10 overs was Prestwick’s top bowler.

Five matches remain as the Glenparkers strive to avoid relegation in what is increasingly looking like a three-team struggle at the foot of the Premier Division involving Ayr, Dumfries and Greenock.

Glenpark XI Lose To League Leaders

Greenock 2ndXI (Glenpark) 132 all out Motherwell 134 for 4 Greenock’s 2nd XI (Glenpark) lost to Division Three league leaders Motherwell at Glenpark on Saturday afternoon. The Lanarkshire side are brushing aside all before them this season having won all ten of their league matches and at present look like runaway league winners.

Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U