1st XI win nail-biter with Langside

Greenock 1st XI v Langside
WDCU Premiership Two
Saturday 27th July 2024

 Scorecard       

The 1st XI won a low scoring, keenly contested Western Premiership Two match against Langside at Glenpark on Saturday. It was a match which had any one of three outcomes possible just prior to what became the last two balls from the end of the game.

Langside could have won if they had gained the last wicket when the Glenparkers were two runs from victory. A tie could have been the result if the last wicket had fallen when the scores were level. But the team gained the win when Inam Knan scored the vital run which took the team past Langside's total. Nail-biting stuff !!

The afternoon began with the team winning the pre-match toss of the coin and inserting Langside. The visitors made an initial promising start when opening batsman Mirza hit a boundary off the third ball of Connor Nowlan's first over. However, Nowlan provided a fine comeback when he bowled Mirza with the first ball of the third over of the match.

The early loss of a wicket made Langside retreat into a very defensive mode of batting and, after eight overs had been bowled, the visitors had only 14 runs showing on the scoreboard.

That position was made worse in the ninth over when a very smart piece of fielding by Cammy Calder led to the run-out of Akram who had scored just six runs from 14 balls faced.

Langside's slow progress continued and by the time a third wicket fell in the sixteenth over, the score had only moved along to 29 when Sridhar (2) was LBW to Sehmet Pandher. However, opening bat Hafeez was still at the crease and he was settling in well and scoring the bulk of the runs for the visitors.

Hafeez continued to be the sole Langside batsman to make any real impression on the scoreboard, but his innings ended in the 32nd over when he was run out by a direct hit on the stumps from a missile-like throw by Connor Nowlan. Hafeez had scored 39 runs and the score had moved on to 77 for 6.

The visitors then batted for only a further eight overs before being bowled out for 101 runs with Sehmet Pandher the top bowler with 3 for 22 from 8 overs. Inam Khan took 2 for 24 from 10 overs, while the team's two top wicket-takers for the season Connor Nowlan and Angus Tolhurst managed just one wicket each.

The Langside score seemed a fairly straightforward target for the 1st XI to chase and pass to gain the win, but that was not what the next couple of hours of play provided.

The innings began badly. Connor Nowlan was dismissed without scoring when he edged the fifth ball of the first over from Mo Afzal into the gloves of wicket-keeper Wajid Mirza. And two further wickets went down before the end of the sixth over with both Cammy Calder and Angus Tolhurst both back in the clubhouse and the team struggling on 27 for the loss of 3 wickets.

Meanwhile experienced opener Shailesh Prabhu was doing his best to hold the innings together as a further two wickets tumbled to leave the team precariously placed on 54 for five after eleven overs.

And when Prabhu was given out LBW with the last ball of the 20th over having scored 27 runs, they were still almost 40 runs short of their target. Langside sensed a winning position was theirs with only the tail end batters remaining.

The visitors feel good factor was increased when a seventh wicket was picked up with the scoreboard reading 71 for 7.

But the remaining batters showed resilience and application and gradually nudged the score nearer and nearer the 102 runs needed to gain the win.

With just thirteen runs needed, Langside picked up two wickets in two balls. Firstly, Ewan Stewart fell to a catch taken at the second attempt in first slip by Mo Ali. He had batted doggedly from midway through the eleventh over, had faced 78 balls and scored 11 runs.

Then, with the very next ball, new batsman Maroof was adjudged LBW to Hafeez and the momentum had taken a major shift back to the visitors.

However, the last two batsmen Inam Khan and Mo Ahmadzai closed out the match by scoring the thirteen runs needed in just three more overs, scoring two boundaries in the process, to give the team and their supporters the win in a real nail-biting end to the game.

Khan was not out 18 and Ahmadzai not out 9 when the winning run was scored.

The 1st XI now have six wins from eleven matches completed and occupy fifth top position with 60.36 %, just 0.04% below Irvine in 4th top spot but 11.36% above Kilmarnock in 6th position.