1st XI easily overcome Hillhead

Hillhead v Greenock 1st XI
WDCU Premiership Two
Saturday 6th July 2024

 Scorecard       

The 1st XI easily won their match with Hillhead on Saturday to complete the league double over their Glasgow rivals.

The Hillhead captain opted to ask Greenock to bat first after winning the toss, a decision which skipper Greg McDougall would also have chosen. In the event the pitch played better than it looked but Hillhead would have felt their decision had been vindicated when their bowlers grabbed two early wickets, including the prize victim of the free-scoring Connor Nowlan who was held by More at mid-off from the bowling of Horn for just 10 runs. 10 for 1 became 24 for 2 when Harry Briggs became the first of keeper Lindley-Dawe's three catches behind the stumps, a good ball finding the edge after he had scored just the one run.

Angus Tolhurst joined Aryan Sanghera at the crease and consolidation was the name of the game as far as they were concerned. They were reasonably successful in this, taking the score on to 76 before Sanghera was bowled by Mazumder for a well-compiled 30. Ewan Stewart quickly followed as he suffered the same dismissal without troubling the scorers and once again the batsmen needed to stop the Hillhead momentum.

Sam Sanghera joined Tolhurst and, like his son, offered good support to the Australian. The pair put on 59 runs for the fifth wicket before Sam was caught behind off the bowling of More for a decent 25 runs. Patrick Bryceland continued the good work and his partnership with Tolhurst yielded a further 40 runs before he fell for 13, a score that included one six.

Yet again, the team proved to be their own enemies with the bat as a further two wickets fell in quick succession to leave the score on 176 for 8, with neither McDougall or Mansoor getting off the mark.

Angus Tolhurst was still there, though. He had been dropped when on 42 but made the most of his good fortune as he regularly found the gaps in the field to keep the score moving. He had realised that the condition of the ground was such that scoring boundaries was not that easy and that scoring ones and twos was the way to build a good score.

He eventually reached his century in the company of Maroof Kochai, the latter playing a good helping role, and the ninth wicket partnership added another 45 runs before Tolhurst was finally caught behind for a splendid 115, an innings which contained 8 fours and 4 sixes and went a long way to enabling the team to set a challenging target. There was just time for Kochai and Dinarkhel to take score on to 233 before the latter was run out off the last ball of the innings, leaving Kochai unbeaten on 14.

The Hillhead innings never got going as the bowlers quickly made inroads into it. The two Australians opened the attack and Tolhurst captured the first two wickets of Longrigg and Adarkar with the total on 12, thanks to catches by McDougall and Nowlan. Nowlan was not to be kept out of the action and he claimed the wickets of Lindley-Dawe and Bartlett to leave Hillhead reeling at 24 for 4.

Worse was to follow for the Glasgow side when Mazumder was caught behind by Harry Briggs from the bowling of Sam Sanghera and More was run out by Nowlan to reduce the score to 31 for 6. Hashmi and Grosvenor now put together the only meaningful partnership of the innings as McDougall rotated his bowling.

They took the score to 82 when McDougall decided that he had had enough and recalled Nowlan to the attack. His extra pace found help from the pitch and he promptly bowled both batsmen and added a further wicket when Das was similarly dismissed. The last wicket pair added a few more runs before Lynch was stumped by Briggs off Ewan Stewart to leave Hillhead all out for 95 and 138 runs short of the 1st XI's total.

Connor Nowlan was the outstanding bowler, his 10 overs yielding 5 wickets for just 12 runs. Angus Tolhurst took 2 for 28 and there was one wicket apiece for Sam Sanghera and Stewart.

Next Saturday sees Dumfries, who went to the top of the table on Saturday after Kelburne were surprisingly well beaten by Langside, come to Glenpark. They will clearly provide a much stiffer task for the team than they encountered on Saturday but it is one which they should relish.