1st XI dealt promotion blow at Kilmarnock

 Scorecard       

The 1st XI's ambition to make a quick return to the Western Premiership One was dealt a significant blow on Saturday when the team was beaten by one of their main promotion rivals, Kilmarnock. In a well contested match, the Glenpark side eventually lost by two wickets as the hosts passed the 187 run target thanks to a match-winning innings of 95 by Kilmarnock opener Adrian Maritz.

On an afternoon when the top two teams, Kelburne and Dumfries, played each other in Paisley, a win at Kilmarnock could have moved the team into second top spot. Instead the loss has dropped the Glenpark side down into sixth position.

Greg McDougall won the toss and elected to bat on a warm and sunny afternoon at the Scott Ellis Playing Fields in Kilmarnock with conditions perfect for cricket.

Connor Nowlan and Harry Briggs opened the innings and made a steady start. 54 runs were scored in the first 15 overs, providing a sound platform from which to accelerate the run-rate. But with the third ball of the sixteenth over Briggs was smartly stumped by Paul Flanagan off the bowling of Adam Wilson. He had scored 20 runs.

Opener Nowlan was joined by Angus Tolhurst and the latter signalled his intent immediately by hitting Wilson for a six with his very first ball. Four overs later Tolhurst repeated the shot and Wilson was hit for a six for a second time.

The partnership was developing well with the run-rate up to almost four runs an over when a complete mix-up in the twenty second over led to the run out of Nowlan who had scored 32.

The loss of the in-form Nowlan at such a crucial phase of the innings led to a drop in the run-rate as the new batsman struggled to make an impact and Tolhurst was unable to get much of the bowling.

Tolhurst was dismissed for 42 with the fifth ball of the 37th over with the total on 125 and well below where the team would have hoped to be in their innings.

With just thirteen overs of the innings remaining, they needed to score at six runs per over to reach 200, which would have been their minimum target at the start of the innings, and eight runs per over to get to around 230 runs which would have been a total that would have been hoped for with the excellent battings conditions available on the afternoon.

In the event, they could only manage to reach 187 for the loss of six wickets at the end of the 50 over innings.

Kilmarnock used seven bowlers as they regularly switched their bowling attack, and after the runout of Nowlan the batsmen struggled to make any real impact. Wilson with two wickets was their most successful wicket-taker, but South African Dehan Fourie with 1 wicket for 20 runs from his 10 overs was their best bowler.

In reply, Kilmarnock made a brisk start with Adrian Maritz hitting two boundaries in the first over after the tea interval. But the Ayrshire side lost opener Alistair Smith for a duck with the fifth ball of the second over when Harry Briggs took a smart catch behind the stumps from the bowling of Sam Sanghera.

Maritz and new batsman Fourie scored freely as they dealt comfortably with the Greenock bowling and fifty runs were on the scoreboard after just ten overs with seven boundaries having been struck. But the partnership was broken early in the thirteenth over when Briggs took a straightforward catch off the bowling of Nowlan to dismiss Fourie for 25 runs with the score on 62.

And with just ten more runs added to the score, Nowlan picked up his second wicket when he bowled home team captain Paul Flanagan (4). With Killie at 72 for 3 in the 16th over the team were very much in the match but needed the wicket of Maritz to be able to take control.

Maritz, however, was the player to take control. He batted with seeming ease and Kilmarnock moved closer and closer to their target with every over bowled.

The wickets of Vieira Oelofse (15) and Islam (1) were captured to put Killie under a bit of pressure at 112 for 5 wickets but a sixty run partnership between Maritz and Qamar put the Ayrshire side on the brink of victory by the end of the 41st over.

However, the team almost snatched what would have been an unlikely win, when first Qamar was LBW to Greg McDougall for 17 to make the score 172 for 6, followed five runs later by the prized wicket of Maritz dismissed for 95, also LBW to McDougall. And then McFadzean (4) was caught by Connor Nowlan from the bowling of Aryan Sanghera with ten runs still needed for the win.

With Kilmarnock reeling from the loss of three quick wickets including Maritz, when they had been easing to a win, it was left to their tail end batsmen Hunter and Singh to get them to their target. This they achieved with just three overs remaining.

Adrian Maritz's innings of 95 runs proved the decisive factor in the match and condemned the team to a loss which means they now need to win most, if not all, of the matches during the rest of the season. if a challenge for promotion is to be re-ignited.