Greenock outplay Irvine and maintain promotion charge

Irvine vs Greenock 1st XI
WDCU CSL First Division
Saturday 30th July 2016

Greenock 1st XI 219 for 8 ND Flack 122; J Hulme 4 for 40
Irvine 49 DOD White 5 for 12, ND Flack 3 for 7

Scorecard       

Greenock took another step towards the goal of gaining promotion back to the WDCU Premier Division with a comprehensive win over Irvine at their Marress ground on Saturday. The margin of victory was a massive 170 runs as the Glenparkers completely outplayed the Ayrshire side in all areas of the game.

Stars of the match were Neil Flack with a superb 122 and Declan White with a five wicket haul which included a magnificent hat-trick.

Greenock lost the toss and for the first time in the league this season batted first. With Phil McIntosh out through injury, the opening pairing had an enforced change and Harry Briggs joined Neil Flack at the top of the order. And the two batsmen made a very positive start to the innings adding 59 runs before Briggs was adjudged LBW to Sachin Chaudhary having scored a patient, well compiled 15 runs.

Having built a good base from the opening partnership, Damon Rootes and Flack then upped the scoring rate and added a further 52 runs in twelve overs to take Greenock to 111, at which point Rootes (19) was out to a very sharp catch by Gurupreet Singh from the bowling of Bhaumik Nayak.

Chris Hempsey fell cheaply bowled by Chaudhary for 7 runs and then the innings' best partnership was provided by Flack and Shailesh Prabhu. Eighty one runs were posted by the two batsmen in just ten overs as Greenock took charge of the game. Neil Flack in particular took command and, being well set having been out in the middle since the start of the match, he began to plunder the Irvine bowling.

Flack reached his well-deserved century with a boundary through the off side and then continued to pile on the runs until, with just under three overs to go, he was bowled by Hulme for 122. The score as he departed was 209 for the loss of 4 wickets in the 48th over.

Sehmat Pandher arrived out in the middle with the express instruction to score as many runs as possible, but departed second ball, bowled by Hulme. Louis Ware was next to the crease and he scored a fine boundary and a single before being bowled by Deepak Yadav off the last ball of the penultimate over.

Shailesh Prabhu all the while had played a fine supporting role and had built a useful innings of his own. But, as the Greenock men looked to add a last few runs to their total, Prabhu perished just three balls before the innings closed, bowled for 26 by Hulme.

Greenock finished their fifty over innings on 219 for the loss of 8 wickets.

For Irvine, James Hulme was leading wicket-taker with 4 wickets for 40 runs, Sachin Chaudhary took 2 wickets for 29 runs from 10 overs, while Bhaumik Nayak and Deepak Yadav, with one wicket each, were the other home bowlers to gain success.

In most league matches this season, Irvine have been a high scoring side, and have recorded totals in excess of two hundred runs in an innings in four of their matches and 170+ in a couple of the others. But it was not to be on Saturday, as the Greenock bowling attack skittled the Ayshire side out for their lowest score of the 2016 season....just 49 runs.

The innings began badly for Irvine with their top scoring, former professional, Sachin Choudhary, brilliantly caught for a 'duck' by wicket-keeper Chris Hempsey diving full length to take a finely edged shot on the leg side off the bowling of Declan White.

Worse quickly followed as Jonathan Hempsey bowled Inderjit Singh with the last ball of his first over and then Declan White clean bowled Mo Alam to leave Irvine reeling on 8 runs for the loss of 3 wickets with just three overs bowled.

The match was well and truly over for Irvine when a further four wickets were lost in the space of just five balls in the eleventh and twelfth overs. Declan White dismissed Bhaumik Nayak, Gurupreet Singh and Deepak Yadav with three consecutive balls to claim a brilliant hat-trick and then Jonathan Hempsey had Mosin Ali caught by his wicket-keeper brother Chris for just 4 runs.

The scoreboard showed that Irvine had pretty much capitulated with only nineteen runs against their total and seven wickets lost.

The Ayrshire side rallied a little thanks to a brief little cameo innings from Josh Conway who scored 18 runs before being LBW to Neil Flack, but the end came in just the 21st over when Neil Flack mopped up the final two wickets of Mohiagha and Hulme to leave Irvine 49 all out.

Declan White was the top wicket-taker for Greenock with 5 wickets for 12 runs from 7 overs. Neil Flack took 3 wickets for just 7 runs from 3.5 overs and Jonathan Hempsey 2 wickets for 12 runs from 9 overs.