Glenpark on course for the title as the 1st XI seek to end season with a win

the 1st XI complete their Western Premiership Two league programme on Saturday with a home fixture against Langside.

The 2025 season has been on the one hand, a disappointing one in terms of league performance, but, on the other hand, a successful one due to the winning of the Cricket Scotland Challenge Cup.

With just Saturday's match remaining to be played, the team have won only four of their ten league matches completed and lost the other six. But it has been poor weekend weather which has been the winner on seven other weekends.

Having such a high number of fixture casualties due to wet weather has led to the summer of 2025 being a frustrating one, as the team has failed to get any rhythm going in what has been a stop start league programme.

A win against Langside has the potential of lifting the side to a season-ending fifth top spot, while a loss could see the Glenpark men just avoid relegation by the smallest of margins.

The Club's two Australian amateurs Callum Henry and Will Jenkins, who have been at Glenpark for the 2025 cricket season, have been important players for the 1st XI.

Henry is the team's top scorer and also leads the Western Championship batting statistics with over 500 runs this season. In all matches played over the summer he has scored close to 700 runs and scored three centuries, all unbeaten, exactly 100 against Helensburgh, and 108 and 111 against Glasgow Accies.

Jenkins has scored almost 200 league runs and over 400 runs in all matches, plus as a bowler he was an important part of the attack. He achieved every bowler's aim of a hat-trick when he got three wickets in consecutive balls against Glasgow Accies in mid-May in a league match at New Anniesland.

Both players will be hoping to close off their season in Scotland with fine performances against Langside on Saturday afternoon.

Team captain, Aryan Sanghera, will also hope to finish the league season on a positive note with a win. But the team will have to improve on their performance against the Glasgow southside visitors earlier in the season.

At the end of June, Langside came out on top in the match played at Albert Park. The 1st XI were bowled out for a lowly 103 after batting for just 33.5 overs and Langside easily overcame that total with 107 for the loss of just 4 wickets scored in 29 overs.

The failure to bat through fifty overs has been a problem on several occasions during the season and must be considered a key factor in the disappointing 2025 league performance.

Ending the league season on a high note with a win on Saturday would round off an up and down season for the 1st XI which has seen the team bringing home the Cricket Scotland Challenge Cup two weeks ago following a fine win over Edinburgh CC in the final. A first major trophy for Greenock in almost two decades.

Saturday's team shows just one change from last week's side with Cammy Calder returning at the expense of Sudeep Chaudhary.

The Glenpark XI meet with Kilmarnock's second string, Kirkstyle, at the Scott Ellis Playing Fields in Kilmarnock on Saturday knowing that gaining just one point from the match will be enough to win the Western Championship Three title.

The side is 10.2 percentage points ahead of Mearns Challengers in second top spot and only a catastrophic loss, with no points gained out of 25, would see Mearns overtake Glenpark for the title.

If the wet weather being forecast in much of the west of Scotland for Saturday does occur, and the match against Kirkstyle is called off, then the league title will be won by Glenpark.

When the two sides met at the end of June, Glenpark scored 203 for 9 and then bowled out Kirkstyle for just 69 runs. So a win for the side is a reasonable prediction.

The team has lost only one match in the league programme, so team captain Eddie Ahmad's side fully deserves to top the table and have the success their performances have brought.

The selected team is along the usual lines and should be more than good enough to secure the title.

The Club is grateful for the continued sponsorship from Cleaning Supplies 4U.