The 1st XI off to Larbert in need of a win

The 1st XI travel through to Larbert in Stirlingshire on Saturday for their Western Premiership One league match with Stenhousemuir. It is a meeting of the top two teams from last season's First Division who gained promotion to the Premier League.

The Stirlingshire side, who were the First Division Champions in season 2022, have made a much better start to the 2023 season than the 1st XI and will be marked down as favourites for Saturday's match at The Tryst.

In the first six rounds of the Premiership One league programme, Stenny have won four and lost two and currently lie in second top spot. The 1st XI on the other hand have won just once and lie second from the bottom of the league table.

Games involving the two clubs are always hard fought encounters and Saturday's game should be no different with the 1st XI out to prove that they are capable of proving the bookies wrong.

Last season, in the two matches which the clubs played against each other it was one win each. Interestingly a win for Stenhousemuir at Glenpark and a win for Greenock at The Tryst.

In the match at Glenpark, the home team failed to chase a very moderate Stenny score of 156 all out reaching just 141 for the loss of 9 wickets. But in the return match at The Tryst it was a very different story. The Stirlingshire side were bowled out for just 95, a score which was overtaken for the loss of six wickets.

Stenhousemuir have a squad which is largely the same as last year. Their South African overseas amateur Emile Streicher, who opened the batting for them in 2022, has been replaced by another amateur from South Africa, Zander Smith, who is also an opening bat.

But once again the Stirlingshire side have looked to South African professional Danie Roussouw as their main run-scorer. The 28 year old from Pretoria in the Gauteng Province had a fine season at The Tryst in 2022 and was quickly signed up for a second stint with the club.

Roussouw plays First Class cricket for Easterns back in his home country and in his last match before travelling to Scotland he scored 80 against Limpopo. He is without doubt the danger man in the Stenhousemuir batting line-up and has one century to his name this season, scoring 104 not out against West of Scotland.

Zander Smith is both opening bowler and opening bat for the side. He has taken 12 wickets in the six matches played with his best being 3 for 35 against Ferguslie. His top score has been 62 also against Ferguslie but he has twice failed to score so the Glenpark attack must look to remove him early.

Others in the Larbert side who must be looked out for are Nick Lister, Calum Grant and Adeel Raza.

Lister who partners Smith in the team's opening bowling attack has picked up 7 wickets in the four matches in which he has played. Grant is a decent all rounder and has 9 wickets and close to 100 runs to his credit. Raza has picked up 6 wickets and scored almost 140 runs.

For the trip to The Tryst, a number of changes have been made to the team that so nearly gained a win last weekend against Clydesdale at Glenpark. No fewer than five players are unavailable for the match with Stenhousemuir. Tom Polkinghorne, Jonathan Hempsey, Harry Briggs, Nagendra Nagaraju and Tom Forrest will all be missing on Saturday. While into the side come Cammy Calder, Shailesh Prabhu, Usman Mansoor, Ewan Stewart and Sudeep Chaudhary.

Polkinghorne will be missed at the top of the batting order. He has been in good form and last Saturday scored 40 runs against Clydesdale and had a fine 108 run partnership with Rahul Dalal. His omission means that yet again a new opening batting partnership must be found.

Chris Hempsey was partnered with Polkinghorne against Clydesdale and he may well retain his position as an opener. Who he is joined by at the top of the batting order will be a decision for team captain Greg McDougall and it will likely be one of two choices, Shailesh Prabhu or Lukas Fischer-Keogh.

Prabhu is an experienced opening bat but in recent times has tended to fill a middle order position. Fischer-Keogh is quickly gaining experience at 1st XI level and is developing well as a top order batsman.

Greenock captain Greg McDougall will need to handle the bowlers he has available very skilfully. He will be without Polkinghorne, Hempsey and Nagaraju but will have Chambers, Dalal, Calder and himself to bowl along with Ewan Stewart and Usman Mansoor brought in from last weekend's Glenpark XI.

Cammy Calder comes back into the side after missing last weekend due to work commitments. He offers an ability to be used as both a bowler and a batsman and match by match he is developing into a very important player for the 1st XI.

Returning to Glenpark with a win would be a huge result. The players will give their all and if the team can perform well throughout the match then a victory could just be achieved.

As usual, the match will start at 12 noon.

The Glenpark XI, who gained a fourth win of the season against nearby Inverclyde last Saturday, are at home to Stenhousemuir's 2nd XI (The Tryst) this weekend. A number of changes have had to be made to the team from last week due to the availability issues of the 1st XI but the chosen eleven should give a good account of themeselves and skipper Eddie Ahmad will be confident of another victory. The match will start at 1pm.

The Club is grateful for the continued sponsorship from Cleaning Supplies 4U.