Greenock long wait for win at Dumfries continues

Dumfries vs Greenock 1st XI
WDCU CSL Premier Division
Saturday 26th June 2021

Scorecard       

Greenock's long wait to win again at Dumfries' Nunholm ground continued on Saturday when the team lost out by a margin of 51 runs. It is now over ten years since the last win at Dumfries.

Greg McDougall, Greenock's captain, opted to insert the Dumfries team when he correctly called at the pre-match toss. Having batted first in the previous two Saturdays and lost, the Glenparkers changed approach and looked to bowl out the opposition and then bat through their own innings to overtake the total set by the home side.

Greenock's opening pace bowling attack of Sean Fischer-Keogh and Gregor Chambers began with three maiden overs as the Dumfries batsmen were slow to get off the mark. Then in the seventh over with just 14 runs having been scored, Fischer-Keogh bowled Andrew Dawson to give Greenock a promising start to the match.

Robert McBride joined opening batsman Scott Beveridge and a good partnership developed to take the home side to 49 in the eighteenth over. Second change bowler Chirag Pandher then gained a second wicket for the Glenparkers when McBride was caught by Chris Hempsey for 19.

With Beveridge playing the anchor role for the Nunholm team, the home score moved along at a steady pace with new batsman Alan Davidson in a more aggressive mood. But having hit four boundaries in his short stay at the crease, Davidson attempted one forcing shot too many and was bowled by Sam Sanghera for a contribution of 21 runs out of the partnership of 27.

The score was then 76 for 3 in the 25th over at the midway point of the innings.

The arrival out in the middle of former St Michaels player, Chris Brockwell, to join Beveridge, signalled a significant change in the pace of the innings. Forty eight runs were added in just the next eight overs before Beveridge (50) became Sanghera's second victim, caught by Chirag Pandher when he had just reached his half century.

Brockwell and new batsman Tommy McGrath kept up the brisk run-scoring as the home side moved on to 162 in the 37th over. But then McGrath (14) presented a second catch for Chris Hempsey from the bowling of Greg McDougall.

With just five wickets down and a solid platform in place for the final thirteen overs of the innings, the Dumfries side was well placed to 'cash in' with Brockwell still at the crease and in fine form.

However, the Dumfries man's innings came to an end in the 44th over when Sam Sanghers claimed his third wicket of the afternoon, bowling him for 58 with the score on 198.

A further thirty runs were added in the remaining six overs and Greenock collected another three wickets as opening bowler Gregor Chambers returned to the Greenock attack. He bowled Cox (20), Armstrong (0) and had Hobman (7) caught by Harry Briggs.

Chris McCutcheon (10) and Matthew Williams (1) were not out as the Dumfries innings close on 228 for the loss of 9 wickets at the end of the 50 overs.

Gregor Chambers took 3 wickets for 19 runs from 10 overs, Sam Sanghera 3 for 36 from 10 overs and Sean Fischer-Keogh, Greg McDougall and Chirag Pandher each picked up one wicket apiece.

Set a target of 223 runs to win at a rate of just under 5 runs per over, Greenock made a good start to their innings with Shailesh Prabhu and Jamie Nowell taking the score past 50 in just the eleventh over.

The loss of Nowell (15) in the sixteenth over, when he presented a return catch to McBride with the score on 67, triggered an all too familiar batting collapse as five more wickets tumbled in the space of the next nine overs.

With just one run added after Nowell's dismissal, opener Prabhu (22) was adjudged Leg Before Wicket (LBW) to Brockwell.

Harry Briggs, Gregor Chambers and Lukas Fischer-Keogh all departed quickly and when Chris Hempsey was caught for 17 by Daniel Armstrong from the bowling of 'man of the match' Brockwell, Greenock had descended to 85 for the loss of 6 wickets in the 25th over.

The uphill task of taking Greenock past the home total following the middle order collapse was a challenge taken up by Sean Fischer-Keogh and Sam Sanghera. The two lower order batsmen dug in and produced the best partnership of either side during the afternoon.

Sixty three runs were added by the pair for the seventh wicket as they put a better complexion on the game for Greenock. But it was not enough. Fischer-Keogh was out LBW for 32 in the 38th over as Greenock approached 150 runs on the scoreboard and Pandher and McDougall were unable to linger for long.

A final wicket partnership between father and son, Sam and Aryan Sanghera, added 24 runs to take Greenock to 177 before Sam was LBW to Hobman for 32 with just two more balls of the 50th and final over still to be bowled.

Chris Brockwell was the outstanding player of the match returning bowling figures of 4 wickets for just 13 runs from his 10 overs to add to his 58 runs in the Dumfries innings.

Davidson 2 wickets for 23, McBride 2 for 36, McCutcheon 1 for 23 and Hobman 1 for 10 were the other Dumfries wicket-takers.

So Greenock's search for a win a first win of the 2021 Premier Division season goes on ... as does their search for a long awaited win again at Nunholm.