1st XI start the second half of the season at Hillhead

The 1st XI start the second half of their WDCU Premiership Two league season on Saturday at Hughenden in the west of Glasgow, the ground of Hillhead.

Their opponents have endured a miserable season so far, having lost all nine of their league matches played to date to leave them sitting detached at the foot of the league table. The 1st XI for their part remain in 6th position in the table after last Saturday's abandoned match at Renfrew.

Hillhead's main problem would appear to lie with their batting. They have twice been dismissed for less than 100, making 55 against Kelburne and 35 against Irvine. Their average score is in the low 100s and that just won't do the job over a season. Just two batsmen have scored over 100 runs to date, another indication of the their frailties with the bat.

Their bowling has in most games proved to be somewhat more at the level needed but even here they have struggled to bowl out their opposition for a challenging total.

It would seem therefore that the team should have little difficulty in obtaining a fourth league win of the season. When the two teams met at Glenpark at the start of May, they achieved a comfortable win by 124 runs with their two young Australians giving early notice of their ability with both bat and ball.

Connor Nowlan hit 79 and took 2 for 28 whilst Angus Tolhurst made 84 and took 3 for 11. Similar performances on Saturday will surely lead to another win.

Nowlan is in great form with the bat at the moment and currently leads the league run-scorers with 404 runs at an average of 80.8. His compatriot has possibly gone off the boil a bit but is due another good score and it would be no surprise if this happened against Hillhead's attack.

The team will be hoping that the mixed weather so far this week does not extend into Saturday and by so doing bring DLS into the equation. Experience with this system of ensuring that a result is achieved, when play is interrupted or ended by rain, has not been good this season with the two games thus affected being lost. This is not to say that the system is without any merit but sometimes it can assist one team more than the other depending when the interruptions occur. And certainly if there is rain around, then the winning of the toss can be vital.

Apart from possible weather conditions, it is difficult to see anything other than a win for the team, especially if Connor Nowlan continues his good form.

Saturday's team shows three changes from the one that was fielded at Renfrew with Harry Briggs, Usman Mansoor and Vishal Yadav replacing the unavailable Cammy Calder, Chirag Pandher and Shailesh Prabhu.

The Glenpark XI have another home fixture on Saturday with Hillhead 3rd XI being the visitors on this occasion. The Glenparkers lie in 5th place in the WDCU Championship Three table after last Saturday's fine win over Milngavie 2nd XI and a continuation of that form should lead to another win. Their opponents won their first two matches of the season but since then have suffered four quite heavy defeats to slip down the table into 10th position.

Last week showed the Glenpark XI's batting in a very good light as they chased down a decent total in very quick time. Vishal Yadav was the star man with an unbeaten 86 but there are others in the team who are quite capable of a similar performance.

No team news is known at the time of writing as skipper Eddie Ahmad has some availability issues to contend with, not least those caused by the changes to the 1st XI.

Both games are scheduled to start at 12 noon.

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