1st XI welcome league leaders Dumfries to Glenpark

On Saturday, the 1st XI will hope to continue their good form of recent weeks. Since mid-June, they have played six matches in all competitions and lost just once, which was to the then league leaders Kelburne.

Saturday's opponents are Dumfries. The south of Scotland side defeated Glasgow Accies last weekend and moved to the top of the league table as Kelburne faltered by losing to Langside.

The Dumfries side is having a very fine season, having won nine out of ten league matches played, so the team will have a huge task to overcome a side which is full of confidence.

Chris Bellwood is the Dumfries team captain, and club supporters will remember that he played at Glenpark for two seasons in 2010 and 2011 before returning to play for his home town team.

Bellwood leads a team which has an all-round strength and which has won most of its matches by large margins. However, when the 1st XI played at Nunholm earlier in the season, Dumfries won by just three wickets in a closely contested match.

They batted first and scored just 107 runs before being bowled out after 31.5 overs. However, Dumfries struggled to overtake that total and were six wickets down for 73. A seventh wicket partnership of 28 runs took them to the brink of victory. A consolation seventh wicket was claimed before Dumfries scrambled across the line to gain victory in the 29th over.

Bellwood leads from the front as the team's captain and opening batsman and has amassed 350 runs so far this season, hitting one century and also notching two fifties. And he is ably supported in scoring runs by a number of others in the side, most notable among whom is South African, Johnathan Van Zyl who is the second highest run-scorer in the league with almost 400 runs.

Dumfries also have a strong bowling attack and have three players who feature in the top twelve wicket-takers in the Western Premiership Two league bowling stats. The evergreen Alan Davidson tops the south of Scotland team's group with 21 wickets while Callum Reynolds-Lewis is just two wickets behind on 19.

The 1st XI field a strong side on Saturday with team captain Greg McDougall in positive mood. "The team has come on to a good spell of form over the last number of weeks and the match on Saturday should be a good contest. Most of our regular players are available for Saturday's game and we are looking forward to avenging the loss suffered at Nunholm in early May.

"Our batting performances over the past month have been very good with plenty of runs being scored. Our bowling and fielding too has been good and we have gained wins which have put us into a comfortable mid-table position and our aim now is to climb up towards the top of the table" he continued.

Last Saturday, young Aryan Sanghera repaid McDougall's faith in playing him as an opening bat when he scored 30 runs at Hillhead. Another such innings on Saturday would do the youngster's confidence no harm and be a boost for the team.

But it was Angus Tolhurst's 115 runs, supported for a time by Sanghera's dad Sam with 28 runs, which put the game out of Hillhead's reach as the team went on to record their highest league score of the season 233 all out with the last ball of the innings.

The bowlers then rattled through the Hillhead batting line-up with Connor Nowlan picking up 5 wickets for just 12 runs from his ten overs. The Glasgow side were bowled out for 95 after 32 overs thanks to a particularly impressive bowling performance which leaked only 9 extras.

Consistent and accurate bowling can have a major impact on a match. Keeping extras to a minimum means the batting side receives as few as possible balls from which to score runs and last Saturday's accurate bowling was the best of the season.

So, the team go into Saturday's match with a score to settle and with their confidence built up from recent good wins. It should be a match well worth watching and, with a decent forecast and a good turnout of local supporters, the team has every chance of gaining the win which would move them further up the table.

The Glenpark XI are away on Saturday to the The Tryst, who are Stenhousemuir's second string. Eddie Ahmad's side have won six out of the nine league matches so far completed and sit fifth in the league while The Tryst are currently in second top spot with seven wins from their nine matches. This should be a well contested match and one which the the team will be very keen to win to keep their good form going.

Both games are scheduled to start at 12 noon.

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