Greenock too strong for Irvine

Greenock 1st XI vs Irvine
WDCU CSL First Division
Saturday 15th August 2015

Scorecard       

Greenock gained a comfortable victory over Irvine at Glenpark on Saturday when they defeated their Ayrshire opponents by a margin of sixty six runs. The win assured the local side maintained their fourth top position but there was no upward progression as third top Poloc also won. Indeed, all of the top five teams won their weekend league games which saw each matched against one of the teams in the bottom half of the table.

Irvine captain for the day, Indian professional Sachin Chaudary, called correctly at the toss prior to the start of the game, chose to insert Greenock, and an early wicket, with the dismissal of Jonathan Hempsey (4) LBW to opening bowler Deepak Yadav in just the third over of play, gave the visitors some encouragement.

However, Neil Flack and Trent Keep then put together a very useful second wicket partnership of 74 runs before an attempted run to a misfield led to Flack being run out for 28 with the home total on 86 after 20 overs of play.

Aidan Forrest (5) had a short stay at the crease before being adjudged LBW to Bhaumik Nayak, and then Greenock suffered a second run out when in-form Trent Keep lost his wicket having scored 60. The Aussie overseas player had been looking as though he was set for a very high scoring innings and his dismissal was a big blow to Greenock.

Further trouble for the Glenparkers came just eight runs later when team captain Shailesh Prabhu (9) was caught off the bowling of Nayak to leave Greenock on 117 for the loss of 5 wickets at the end of 29 overs.

A heavy rain shower then interrupted play for a spell during which the umpires decided to take an early tea break, and, when play was resumed, the match had been reduced from fifty overs per side to just forty five overs per side.

Almost immediately upon resumption of play, Harry Briggs was bowled by Nayak to leave Greenock in the fairly precarious position of 123 runs for loss of 6 wickets. But once again Greenock put together a fine partnership, this time through U15 Scottish international Louis Ware and 19 year old Queenslander, Blake Taylor.

In just ten overs, the two young players added an invaluable fifty five runs with some fine attacking shot-making which produced a number of boundaries. However the partnership came to an end with the total on 178 when Taylor was bowled by Sachin Chaudhary, having scored 20 runs.

With just four overs remaining, Greenock went all out to score as many runs as possible and in the chase, Darren Walker went cheaply, clean bowled by Muhammad Alam, but Ware and Greg McDougall managed to add a further sixteen runs before the innings closed on 199 for 8 after 45 overs.

Louis Ware, with 52 not out, notched up his first senior half century and Greg McDougall was also unbeaten on 10 not out.

Bhaumik Nayak was Irvine's top bowler with 3wickets for 26 runs from 8 overs, while the league's top wicket-taker Sachin Chaudhary was restricted to just 1 wicket for 51 runs from 14 overs.

Nayak and Muhammad Alam opened the batting for Irvine and made a positive start to the innings by scoring twenty five runs from the first five overs. But with the first ball of the sixth over, Nayak (5) fell victim LBW to Darren Walker. And then exactly four overs later, Walker trapped Alam (24) LBW to put the visitors on 41 for the loss of 2 wickets.

Chaudhary, who had come in at the loss of the first wicket, now became the key player for the visitors and he took command out in the middle playing sensibly and scoring with relative ease. However, he gained little support from others in the Irvine batting line-up and quite soon a further couple of wickets had gone down for the visitors.

South African overseas amateur Chad Frans (2) was bowled by Trent Keep, and then Deepak Yadav became Darren Walker's third LBW victim of the innings, to leave Irvine on 65 runs for the loss of 4 wickets after 16 overs.

Chaudhary then had a couple of decent partnerships which put Irvine back into the game. Firstly, with Gurupreet Singh (20), thirty two runs were added in just four overs before Singh was caught by Trent Keep to give Darren Walker his fourth wicket of the afternoon. Then secondly, with Pashtoon Mohiagha, a further thirty five runs were scored in the next eight overs to take the Ayrshire side on to 132 and needing just sixty eight runs from eighteen overs with only five wickets down.

But that was when 'the wheels came off the wagon'! Mohiagha (11) was out LBW to Blake Taylor and with the very next ball, new batsman Josh Conway was completely beaten by Taylor's pace and had his stumps knocked over to leave the visitors reeling on 132 for the loss of 7 wickets.

Darren Walker then claimed his fifth wicket of the match when he had Inderjit Singh adjudged LBW with only one further run added to the total.

And the rout was complete, with no further addition to the score, when Chaudhary, who had batted valiantly from first wicket down, became the last batsman to lose his wicket. He was caught by Shailesh Prabhu, for a very fine innings of 58 runs, when he mis-timed Neil Flack's very first ball, attempting to go for a big hit with the game at that point already out of his side's reach.

Darren Walker bowled splendidly, returning figures of 5 wickets for 49 runs from 14 overs. Blake Taylor had 2 for 36 from 6 overs, while Trent Keep and Neil Flack each picked up a wicket.