1st XI face another league and cup weekend

The WDCU Western Premiership Two league programme reaches its mid-point on Saturday, and, for the 1st XI, that means a trip to the south side of Glasgow to meet Langside at Albert Park.

The first half of the season has been a frustrating one. The warm sunshine of the first three Saturdays gave way to cool, wet conditions towards the end of May causing the matches in Rounds 4 and 5 of the league programme to be either cancelled or abandoned with no result. Rounds 6 and 7 in early June were affected by similar wet weather conditions and brought more no results.

But last Saturday the weather relented, and the team played host to Helensburgh. The Glenparkers swept aside their near neighbours from across the Clyde gaining a nine wicket win, which will have given the side a real confidence boost after the long, weather-enforced lay-off.

Saturday's opposition, Langside, currently sit third from bottom in the Western Premiership Two league table. The Glasgow southsiders have lost three out of the four matches which they have completed.

The Albert Park team have had a similar experience to the 1st XI in so far as they had four consecutive Saturdays without a completed match in late May / early June. However, their return to league cricket last Saturday against East Kilbride at Torrance House did not go so well. East Kilbride posted a total of 181, but Langside were all out for 139 and so slipped into relegation territory.

Scoring enough runs to seriously challenge their opponents has been the southsiders' main problem in the matches to date. Only once has the team scored a total in excess of 150 runs and no one batsman has reached an individual total of 80 runs or a top score greater than 58.

However, their bowling attack is one which Greenock will need to take care against. Mo Afzal has taken 10 wickets in the league with a best of 5 wickets for 22 against Helensburgh. Nathan Perika has taken 6 wickets and Sajid Khan 5 wickets.

The side for Saturday's match shows a number of changes from last weekend. Unavailable are Harry Briggs, Sehmat Pandher, Nikhil Kadyan and PJ Bryceland and into the side come Mu Ahmadzai, Fahimgul Dinarkheil, Chirag Pandher and Shailesh Prabhu.

Callum Henry will once again be a key player for Greenock. The young Aussie amateur has scored league centuries against Glasgow Accies and Helensburgh, both unbeaten, and averages 126 in the league.

Henry and team captain Aryan Sanghera have developed a useful opening pairing in league matches to date. They have had a couple of fifty partnerships and last Saturday compiled an opening stand of 119 against Helensburgh. That partnership was the first century stand by a 1st XI pairing in a league match for 17 years.

However, the team cannot depend solely on Henry every week. Fortunately, they have numerous other players who have shown decent league form with the bat this year.

Although missing from Saturday's eleven is Nikhil Kadyan, who picked up 6 wickets for just 22 runs last week, team captain Aryan Sanghera will have plenty of bowling options available with the team selected. And if early wickets can be gained, it should be important to give Langside no opportunity to regroup and get back into the game.

Weather and also ground conditions are likely to play an important role in Saturday's match at Albert Park. So, the team captain who wins the toss will have an important decision to make - bat first or insert the opposition?

On Sunday, the 1st XI meet Kilmarnock in the second round of the CS Challenge Cup match at Glenpark. Last Sunday, their tie with Dundee HSFP was thwarted by the weather for a third and final time as the teams tried to get their first round tie played.

In order to allow the competition to continue as scheduled, a coin toss was conducted at the offices of Cricket Scotland (CS) in Edinburgh on Wednesday morning, filmed and witnessed by CS officials. The toss was won by Greenock who now meet their bogey team Kilmarnock this coming Sunday in a 40-overs per side match, starting at 1pm.

No team has yet been announced for the match.

The Glenpark XI have a home league match against Kirkstyle, Kilmarnock's 2nd XI, at Glenpark on Saturday and will be hoping to continue their unbeaten run in the Western Championship Division Three.

The good early season form which brought wins against Galloway, Milngavie and Ardrossan in May has been halted by the miserable weather of the past few weeks and the selected team will hope to take up on Saturday where they last finished off.

The 1st XI tamely exited this season's McCulloch Cup at the quarter-final stage on Wednesday evening, when the team was well beaten by Prestwick at the Henry Thow Oval.

Batting first, Greenock never recovered from a poor start to their innings and were bowled out for a lowly 64 runs. Prestwick then took just under twelve overs to win the match, losing just 2 wickets in the process.

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