Greenock travel to meet the league leaders

 

Greenock take to the road yet again this weekend to travel through to Uddingston, having last played a match at their own Glenpark ground on Wednesday 7 June. Including this coming Saturday afternoon's game, Greenock will have played eleven matches away from home out of a possible twelve since the beginning of June ..... possibly a record.

Saturday's opponents, Uddingston, are the current Premier Division league leaders having won five out of the six matches which they have completed. Most recently, last Saturday, Ferguslie who had been leading the Premier Division, were toppled by Uddingston following their match at Bothwell Policies, which the Lanarkshire side won quite decisively.

Key for Uddingston this season has been Ross Lyons. Brought up in his early years in Greenock, the then young Ross played occasionally for Hillend at the Fort Matilda ground along with his late father Graham. On moving to live in Glasgow he joined Clydesdale and gained recognition at junior international and then senior international levels.

Following a spell living and playing in Australia, Ross returned to Scotland and joined East Kilbride. However, in the winter break between the 2016 and 2017 season, Ross moved to his present club Uddingston and he has been a major reason for the Lanarkshire club's elevation to the current top spot in the league.

Last Saturday, Ross almost single-handedly brought about the defeat of the then league leaders Ferguslie. Batting first, Uddingston amassed 242 for the loss of 7 wickets of which Ross scored an unbeaten 102 runs. He then went on to rip through the Ferguslie batting line-up taking 5 wickets for just 17 runs. It was the 'Ross Lyons Show'.

Greenock will be hoping that he does not bring a similar performance to this Saturday's match at Bothwell Policies.

Of course, Uddingston are not simply a one-man team. Others whom Greenock must be aware of include Amir Gul and Anwar Hafeez who have been important wicket-takers and also, on occasion, run-scorers. Gavin Bradley, Bryan Clarke and Harry Singh have also each had some innings of note in the first half of the season.

In the opening Premier Division match of the season at Glenpark at the end of April, Greenock had Uddingston on the ropes early in their innings at 65 for 5 wickets, but failed to drive home the advantage and the Lanarkshire side managed to bat through and finish on 190 for the loss of 9 wickets. In reply, Greenock could not find a single decent batting partnership and were bowled out for 122.

Since that opening day, the Glenparkers have shown in the league and cup games played to date, that they can be a match for any of the sides in the Premier Division. Ayr were beaten by a good all round team performance at Glenpark. Ferguslie were well beaten in a recent match at Meikleriggs and Dumfries only narrowly won in a very high scoring match at Nunholm.

On its day, the Greenock side possesses players who can score runs, take wickets and win matches. Neil Flack has for much of the season been in fine form and has scored over five hundred runs. Kyle Scrimegour too has scored runs regularly although is still seeking a way to build on good starts to his innings, while Louis Ware, Shailesh Prabhu and Julien Hulbert have each shown they can provide important runs in the middle order.

In the two recent Scotland Under-19 v Scotland Development XI matches, which interestingly were played at Uddingston's ground, Neil Flack and Louis Ware both featured and did well. Flack, who was the Scotland captain in the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh in 2016, was the leading batsman for the Development XI while Ware, a current member of the Scotland Under-19 squad, also scored significant runs.

And in the bowling attack, Greenock have players who can provide problems for the best of batsmen. Michael Papps, the New Zealand international who has been scoring runs for fun for Ayr, was removed for a relatively low score at Glenpark and Con De Lange and Richie Berrington, while contributing some important runs for Clydesdale last Saturday, did not get the really big runs each is capable of scoring.

On Saturday, as the holiday season kicks in, Greenock will be missing Shailesh Prabhu, Sam Sanghera and Chris Hempsey and also Phil McIntosh who injured his hamstring last Saturday at Clydesdale and will be out for a number of weeks.

So, the Glenparkers, with a less than full strength side, will need to be at their best to challenge the league leaders at Uddingston on Saturday afternoon.

 

WDCU CSL Premier Division Table

 
Played
Won
Lost
Points
Net Run Rate
%
Uddingston
6
5
1
134
0.68
89.34
Prestwick
7
5
2
142
0.92
81.15
Ayr
8
6
2
162
0.55
81.00
Ferguslie
7
5
2
135
-0.11 
77.15
Poloc
7
4
3
116
0.16
66.29
Clydesdale
8
4
4
120
0.92
60.00
Dumfries
7
3
4
  96
0.03
54.86
GREENOCK
7
2
5
  79
-0.48 
45.15
East Kilbride
5
1
4
  41
-1.35 
32.80
Kelburne
8
0
8
  32
-1.51 
16.00

 

The Greenock side to play Uddingston shows four changes from last Saturday's match with Aidan and Tom Forrest, Sehmat Pandher and Euan Stewart brought in to replace those mentioned above as being unavailable. The match will start at the usual time of 12 noon.

The Glenpark XI are at Glenpark for the third successive Saturday this time to play Williamfield (Stirling County's 2nd XI) in the Reserve League First Division. After last week's excellent victory over Anniesland, the team, which is packed full of family members, will be keen to build on this and gain another win. Their first game against Williamfield was conceded by the opposition who were unable to raise a team so Glenpark have no knowledge of the strength of their opponents, who currently sit in second bottom place in the league. The game will start at 12 noon.

The Hillend XI are on their travels on Sunday, making the journey to Larbert to play Stenhousemuir in the WDCU Sunday League Division 2 in a match that will start at 1pm. There should be the usual mix of the young and old in the team who are still looking for their first league win of the season.

*** On Friday evening, Greenock and Helensburgh's Under-15 team travel to Glasgow to play Glasgow Accies Under-15s whilst the Under-11s are at Glenpark against the Accies' Under-11s. On Monday, the Under-13s take on West of Scotland Under-13s at Glenpark while the Greenock / Helensburgh Under-18 team are in Glasgow to play Poloc in the Under-18 league.

 

Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored this season by Cleaning Supplies 4U.