By Peter Hempsey

Greenock 190 for 8 wickets from 44 overs (innings reduced due to rain interruption)

Ayr 17 for 0 wickets from 2.5 overs

MATCH ABANDONED DUE TO RAIN

GREENOCK travelled south to Ayr on Saturday to face the Western Premiership One league leaders at New Cambusdoon in Alloway.

It was a top versus bottom encounter but following a morale-boosting win over Dumfries a week ago, the Glenpark team was in buoyant mood and hopeful of gaining a good result.

The weather intervened however and the match was abandoned early in the Ayr innings after a second very lengthy stoppage due to heavy rain.

Put into bat by Ayr captain Michael English, Greenock started their innings with Tom Polkinghorne and Shailesh Prabhu. 

Ayr gained the breakthrough with the last ball of the seventh over. Opening bowler Scott McElnea trapped Prabhu (6) LBW with the score on 13.

This brought Lukas Fischer-Keogh to the middle to join Polkinghorne. But just three overs later, and with only another eight runs added to the score, Fischer-Keogh (4) played a loose shot to a ball from Matthew Baines and was easily caught by Robert Walsh at point.

In-form Rahul Dalal, Greenock’s professional, joined Polkinghorne and soon the pairing began to dominate the Ayr bowling.

By the end of the 14th over the Greenock score had doubled as Dalal and Polkinghorne took a liking to McElenea’s bowling in particular and hit five well-timed boundaries.

A double change to the home bowling attack with Neil Flack and Michael English coming on subdued the run-scoring for the next six overs with only 12 runs added.

However, when Ayr made another change and introduced Puskar Bandhari to their attack, Dalal took an immediate liking to his bowling and smashed two sixes and a four from his first over and then a further nine runs from his second over, including another maximum hit over the boundary line.

Dalal’s brutal burst of scoring led to another change from Ayr captain Michael English as he sought to quell the run-scoring.

Jonathan Woodhouse replaced Bandhari and although the rash of boundaries were reduced they were not altogether eliminated as Polkinghorne and Dalal remained in dominant mood against all that the home side could offer.

At the midway point in the innings after 25 overs Greenock had moved on to 95 for the loss of the two early wickets and were looking good to build a very healthy total.

However, the partnership between Polkinghorne and Dalal was eventually broken towards the end of the 33rd over when Polkinghorne got an edge to a ball from Woodhouse and was caught behind the wicket by Michael Miller.

The partnership had added 114 runs and taken Greenock to 135. Polkinghorne had played a fine supporting role to the Glenpark pro scoring 40 very valuable runs.

Ayr found their way back into the game and just two overs later gained the prize wicket of Dalal. The score had moved on to 155 when the Indian professional mis-timed a ball from Woodhouse and was easily snapped up by Scott McElnea at mid-off.

Dalal was on 90 just ten runs short of what would have been his fourth Premiership century of the season.

The Greenock innings was disrupted during the 39th over when heavy thundery rain caused play to be halted. On resumption, Greenock’s innings had been reduced to 44 overs instead of 50.

In the five overs remaining, Greenock batsmen sought to get the team’s total over 200 but in their efforts to score quick runs, a number of wickets were lost and only 12 runs were added. At the end of the 44th over Greenock had reached 190 runs for the loss of 8 wickets

Unfortunately, the wet weather returned after less than three overs had been bowled in the Ayr innings when the match was abandoned.

Greenock’s 2ndXI ‘Glenpark’ had better luck with the weather and their match against Galloway 2ndXI at Glenpark was able to be completed. Batting first the Glenpark XI scored 167 for 9. Sudeep Chaudhary top scored with 48 runs while Nagendra Nagaraju 27, Eddie Ahmad 25 and Dave Sharma 25 also scored well.

In reply, Galloway were soon in some difficulty thanks to some tight bowling and good fielding. The visitors lost their first four wickets for just 15 runs. However, a good partnership between Naylor (33) and Lindsay (14) late in the innings helped the visitors to reach 113 for the loss of 8 wickets at the end of their 40 overs.

Dave Sharma with 3 wickets for just 12 runs from his 10 overs was the Glenpark XI’s top bowler.

The Glenpark XI are in fourth top position in the Western Championship Three league table with six wins from ten matches completed and have 163 points giving a 65.2 percentage.

Greenock’s Sunday XI ‘Hillend’ travelled to Paisley to play a Ferguslie XI in a friendly fixture. The Hillend XI batted first at Meikleriggs and scored a very useful 192 all out with Cammy Calder making 63 and Vishal Yadav 38, Chirag Pandher 27 and Tom Forrest 25.

In reply, the Paisley men were dismissed for 78 leaving the Hillend XI the victors by 114 runs.

Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U