CRICKET — Season-Defining Match For GreenockGREENOCK face Drumpellier on Saturday at Glenpark for an encounter set to have huge implications for the rest of the season.
Greenock lie in second-bottom position and Drumpellier in third-bottom spot with just six percentage points separating them. A win for Greenock will lift them above Drumpellier and be a huge confidence booster following on from last weekend’s win over East Kilbride. But a loss to the Lanarkshire side would leave the Glenparkers trailing significantly and make the remainder of the Premier Division season a huge uphill struggle.
Greenock will only be contemplating victory and they have the players to achieve that outcome. Plus, the team will have learned from the matches played in the first half of the season when, on a number of occasions, they got into winning positions only to let go their grip on the games and hand victory to their opponents. A further important factor in Greenock’s favour is the improved form of a number of players.
Neil Flack has grown in confidence in recent weeks after a disappointing start to the season. Now he seems back to the sort of form where he can build big innings’ when batting and take wickets when given the ball to bowl. Last Saturday at East Kilbride, Flack enjoyed an unbeaten 73-run, match-winning partnership with Saurabh Bandekar, scoring 37 runs himself and finishing off the match with a towering six hit high over the bowler’s head into the distant trees at Torrance House. Earlier too, he had removed two of the most dangerous EK batsmen during his spell of bowling.
Indian professional, Bandekar, has been Greenock’s most consistent performer in the matches to date and he is currently the leading run scorer across the Premier Division with 323 runs and also second top wicket-taker with 23 wickets. More of the same in the remaining matches of the second half of the league programme will be a major factor in Greenock’s fight for survival in the top division. Runs and wickets from Bandekar on Saturday against Drumpellier will bring cheers from the Glenpark support.
Greenock’s overseas amateur, Zac Barrenechea, has been finding form with the bat during June and his runs at the top of the order are important in giving the Greenock innings a positive impetus from which others can push on.
In the match at Langloan in early May, Jonathan Hempsey gained his best bowling figures to date taking four wickets for just 24 runs and a return to that sort of form would be welcomed by the player and team.
That match at Drumpellier’s home ground is one which the bowlers will wish to remember but batsmen forget. Greenock bowled out the Lanarkshire side for just 54 but then had the mother of all batting collapses and finished four runs short to lose a game which seemed a sure-fire win. The players will be doubly determined to win on Saturday and erase that first match of the season from their memories.
Drumpellier have gained just two wins in matches completed to date in the Premier Division, the one against Greenock and the second against bottom-side East Kilbride. Drumpellier have lost the other five matches completed and only picked up bonus points in two of these which indicates that they have been soundly beaten in the other three.
And last Saturday, had rain not intervened and caused the match to be abandoned, Drumpellier looked likely to lose heavily to their near neighbours and current league leaders, Uddingston, in the match played at Langloan, Coatbridge.
Greenock on the other hand, while only managing one win to date, have pick up 31 bonus points and have been competitive in all of their Premier Division matches this season.
Drumpellier will probably depend very heavily on their Sri Lankan professional Gayan Maneeshan. He has had a couple of good scores in June with 66 against Poloc and 53 against Clydesdale but, other than the pro, there have been few others who have made any meaningful contributions with the bat.
On the bowling front, Dale Pryde and Zeeshan Aziz have been the Drumps team’s main threat with the ball, but between them they have taken a total of just 19 wickets in the seven Premier Division matches played.
Humza Sabri, Josh Allison, Alistair Rawlinson and Willie Leslie are others to whom they can turn in their bowling attack. It was Rawlinson who did the damage to the Greenock batting line-up back in May, taking five wickets for just 12 runs Rawlinson has not played for Drumpellier since that game and Greenock will be hoping he does not make his return at Glenpark.
But Greenock are ready for the Drumpellier test on Saturday and, with the win at East Kilbride last weekend, the confidence of the players in the team has been lifted and the momentum is now with the local side.
Greenock’s team for the match against Drumpellier, which starts at noon, is likely to be from: S Bandekar, Z Barrenechea, C Calder, S Fischer-Keogh, ND Flack, J Griffiths, JPC Hempsey, CJK Hempsey, GJ McDougall, RP Mountford, SS Sanghera, E Stewart. Scorer: R McGregor
Greenock’s 2nd XI (Glenpark) have a match against Clydesdale Bees XI at Auldhouse, Glasgow on Saturday at 1pm. The team will be from: A Calder, H Briggs, PJ Bryceland, A Caskie, P Caskie, L Fischer-Keogh, K Flack, T Forrest, P Hempsey, J Hutchinson, J Nowell, PE Robertson, A Sanghera, D Sharma.
Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U
