Greenock overwhelmed by Poloc

Poloc vs Greenock 1st XI
WDCU CSL Premier Division
Saturday 23rd June 2018

Poloc 369 for 2 J Snyman 209, CA Young 128*
Greenock 1st XI 92 SS Prabhu 36; CS Nel 4 for 6, A Rana-Hanif 3 for 8

 Scorecard       

Greenock suffered a very heavy defeat from Poloc at Shawholm on Saturday as the first half of the Premier Division programme came to an end. And the good form of recent weeks was conspicuously absent as all aspects of Greenock's game failed to fire on an afternoon when little went right on the park.

The one thing which did go well for Greenock occurred with the very first ball of the match when Saurabh Bandekar bowled Poloc opening batsman Ramzan. However, it was a false dawn, as the early wicket was to be the only celebration that Greenock enjoyed throughout the entire afternoon.

From ball two, it was all Poloc. Craig Young came to the middle to join South African professional Jurie Snyman and the two batsmen proceeded to build a partnership which just grew and grew as the innings developed.

Snyman, in particular, was the batsman who took charge as Poloc reached various 'milestones' but Young was a very able support along the road, while at the same time the Greenock bowling attack, on the afternoon, could not get into a high enough gear to get wickets.

It was just 'one of those days' for Greenock. Before leaving Glenpark to travel to Glasgow, up and coming young player Sean Fischer-Keogh was forced to call off due to illness and so the Glenparkers' bowling attack lost one of its key elements.

Once arrived at Shawholm, Greenock captain Neil Flack failed to win the toss and Poloc opted to bat on a fine, flat batting track and put Greenock into the field on an afternoon when batting would probably also have been their preference.

And as Snyman and Young were getting the Poloc innings moving forward, Greenock suffered a further couple of setbacks. Firstly, wicketkeeper Chris Hempsey dislocated a finger and had to be replaced behind the stumps by Neil Flack. Then Flack himself suffered a finger injury just as the mid innings drinks break approached and so Shailesh Prabhu took over as Greenock's third wicketkeeper for the afternoon.

With the Greenock team in some disarray, Snyman and Young took full advantage and piled on the runs. The first fifty runs came up in the fourteenth over and by the twenty second over the first one hundred runs had been reached.

Two hundred runs were on the board in the thirty seventh over, by which time Snyman had reached his own century, and thereafter the South African really let loose. Boundaries and sixes became commonplace as the Poloc score accelerated in the last quarter of their innings.

Craig Young, who had been the supporting act to Snyman's lead role, reached his own century just before Snyman achieved the remarkable milestone of his double century.

The South African's huge innings finally ended when he was caught by Greg McDougall off the bowling of Neil Flack for 209 in the final over. He hit twelve 6s and fourteen 4s. Young, who on any other day would have been the star player, reached his own century in the final few overs and finished unbeaten on 128.

The Snyman - Young partnership was worth a massive 358 runs and when the innings closed, the final total was 369 for the loss of just two wickets.

Following the tea interval, Greenock set about the mammoth task of trying to overtake the Poloc total. But it was Poloc who quickly gained the upper hand with both Neil Flack and Laurens Smit removed by the seventh over of the innings with just 30 runs on the scoreboard.

A fifty partnership between Shailesh Prabhu and Saurabh Bandekar took Greenock into the 80s by the sixteenth over and the innings was moving along well. But then four wickets in just three overs, without any addition to the score, left Greenock once again shell-shocked and reeling at 81 for 6. Both Prabhu (35) and Bandekar (22) were removed during the fall of these four wickets and any hope of Greenock getting anywhere close to the Poloc score all but evaporated.

The Glasgow side moved in for the kill and only a further eleven runs were added before the Greenock innings came to an end in the 24th over. South African amateur Coenraad Nel was the top Poloc wicket-taker with 4 wickets for just 6 runs from 4.4 overs

The Glenparkers will view Saturday as 'a bad day at the office' and move on to the second half of the league season knowing the task which is in front of them if Premier Division survival is to be achieved.