Facile winning start for 1st XI

Greenock vs East Kilbride 2nd XI
Friendly
Saturday 19th April 2014

Greenock 303 for 5 ND Flack 102, GJ McDougall 48, HR Briggs 43, JPC Hempsey 36, M Crichton 34
East Kilbride 2nd XI 88 GR Crichton 3 for 9, SS Sanghera 3 for 20

Scorecard       

On Saturday, East Kilbride provided the opposition and Greenock gained a comprehensive victory winning by over two hundred runs against a relatively weak ‘new town’ side. The Lanarkshire club fielded their 1st XI against Ayr and sent their 2nd XI to Glenpark.

The particular highlight of this match was a first century by Greenock’s young Scotland U17 opening batsman Neil Flack (pictured above). He compiled 102 before retiring to allow others in the side to have some time in the middle. In his century of runs Flack hit fifteen boundaries.

Another who got into the runs and made an encouraging contribution in this first friendly was Flack’s opening partner Harry Briggs who scored 43 before being caught by evergreen Brian Kampman. The two very promising youngsters compiled 90 runs in their opening partnership and laid the foundations for what became a very high innings total.

Jonathan Hempsey, who captained the side on the day, scored 36 with other useful runs coming from Mark Crichton 34 and Greg McDougall 48 as Greenock ramped up over 300 runs in just forty overs.

Chasing such a large total, East Kilbride never threatened to challenge the target set. Greenock’s opening bowlers Dave Sharma and Mark Crichton gained early successes and by the end of the opening ten overs the visitors were struggling on 40 for 3.

Greenock’s domination continued as others in the side got the opportunity to get some bowling practice, and further wickets were picked up by Louis Ware 1 for 14, Sam Sanghera 3 for 20 and Guy Crichton 3 for 9, as the Lanarkshire side could only muster 88 runs before their innings came to an end when they were bowled out in the twenty ninth over.