Greenock beat Victoria on last ball

Greenock 1st XI vs Victoria
WU40 Cup
Sunday 19th July 2015

Scorecard       

Once again a delayed start due to heavy overnight rain on Saturday meant this match did not get underway until 3.30pm and the umpires decreed it would be a 25 over per side encounter.

Greenock won the toss and invited Victoria to take first shot on a wicket and outfield far from ideal due to the very damp ground conditions following heavy overnight rain.

The Glasgow side made their intentions clear right from the start with their batsmen making serious efforts to dispatch virtually every the ball to as far distant a place as possible. However, this tactic largely failed to come off and wickets fell quite regularly apart from a good partnership of 31 runs from Chaudhry (19) and Mirza (17) for the seventh wicket. At the end of Victoria's 25 overs, they had made a total of 115 with their tenth and final wicket going down on the very last ball of their innings.

With a limit of just five overs for any bowler, Greenock did just make use of five bowlers to run through the Victoria innings and each picked up at least one wicket with Ben Peterson and Trent Keep each getting two.

Greenock's reply seemed well in control when they were 69 for 1 in just the thirteenth over, but the loss of Trent Keep (39) brought about a loss of momentum and from then on the Glenparkers began to lose the advantage which had been built up.

Aidan Forrest who had batted well alongside Keep in their 58 run second wicket partnership continued to guide Greenock towards the winning line but he was caught and bowled by Safi for 28 with the score on 101 and fifteen runs still required from three overs and two balls. Chirag Pandher (11) was caught in the following over by Raja off the bowling of Ahmed for the addition of just one more run and so, with just 15 balls remaining, Greenock still needed 14 runs.

Ben Peterson and Blake Taylor ensured bat onto ball with almost every delivery and as the final over began Greenock required seven runs from the last six balls. In an exciting finish, the Glenparkers tied the scores with the penultimate ball and gained a match winning run from the final delivery.

Taylor was not out 9 and Peterson not out 5. Ahmed with 2 wickets for 21 runs from his five overs was Victoria's most successful bowler.

Greenock will now meet Uddingston in the quarter-final at Glenpark next Sunday.

The match was kindly sponsored by Fishertruck, Cardwell Road, Gourock