Henry's unbeaten century leads 1st XI to victory over Helensburgh

Greenock 1st XI v Helensburgh
Western Premiership Two
Saturday 21st June 2025

Helensburgh 167   L Trueman 85; N Kadyan 6 for 22
Greenock 1st XI 168 for 1   CJ Henry 100*

Greenock 1st XI (25 pts) defeated Helensburgh (0 pts) by 9 wickets

Scorecard

The 1st XI gained an important win on Saturday at Glenpark when visitors for the Western Premiership Two league match, Helensburgh, were defeated by nine wickets.

After four consecutive wet Saturdays with league matches either cancelled or abandoned without a result, the weather returned to proper summer mode (for the day) and a full match was able to be played.

Helensburgh won the pre-match coin toss, and, not too surprisingly, opted to bat first. But it was Greenock who made the early move when opening bat Caelan Lang was dismissed LBW by Cammy Calder in just the fourth over of play and with only nine runs showing on the scoreboard.

The visitors' innings moved along slowly, and when a second wicket fell in the thirteenth over, just 24 runs had been scored. The batsman removed was Ed Williamson who was caught by Harry Briggs off the bowling of Nikhil Kadyan.

Three boundaries by Helensburgh captain Gregor Chambers in the over immediately following Williamson's dismissal hinted at a revival in the visitors' innings. But it was short lived, as slow left arm spin bowler Nikhil Kadyan abruptly ended Chambers innings, bowling him for 22 runs in the fifteenth over. Score 39 for 3.

South African Lance Trueman, who had joined Chambers when the second wicket fell, now assumed the key batting roll in the visitors' innings. However, further wickets fell regularly until the Argyll & Bute team were 77 for the loss of 7 wickets after 29 overs.

All of these wickets resulted from Nikhil Kadyan's bowling and the left arm spinner ended his ten overs with 6 wickets for 22 runs at the conclusion of the 31st over of the Helensburgh innings.

With Trueman still at the crease, the visitors gradually got themselves back into the match. And by the 38th over Trueman and Kodithuwakku Aranchchi had added 51 runs together, and with another twelve overs still remaining in their innings, threatened to take the total up towards 200.

But then Kodithuwakku Aranchchi tried to smash a delivery from Ewan Stewart to the Bedford Street boundary only to be caught by Sam Sanghera at mid-on. He had scored 20 runs.

Trueman remained unbeaten at this point in the innings on 58, and, with only the last two batsmen remaining, he personally added another 28 runs to the total before being the final wicket to fall, when he was stumped by Cal Henry off the bowling of Greg McDougall for 86 and the Helensburgh innings ended on 167 all out.

But before Trueman's wicket had ended the Helensburgh innings, McDougall had reached a personal landmark of 200 1st XI wickets by trapping Ian Chambers LBW.

So, having been 77 for 7 wickets, the target of 167 set by Helensburgh was significantly higher than Greenock would have anticipated earlier in the afternoon.

After the tea interval, needing an average of slightly more than three runs per over, Greenock set about their task with openers Callum Henry and Aryan Sanghera at the top of the batting order.

The pairing, which has already notched up a couple of fifty run partnerships this season, went to the next level with a century partnership which put Greenock well on the road to winning the match.

Aussie Henry and team captain Sanghera's opening partnership produced 119 runs and was the first century partnership for the 1st XI in a league match since May 2008 when New Zealand test batsman Tim McIntosh and Scottish international Sean Weeraratna achieved the feat against Edinburgh side Carlton.

The partnership was ended in the 24th over when Sanghera was bowled by Lance Trueman for 27. Harry Briggs then joined Henry and these two batted through the next ten overs adding 49 runs which took Greenock past Helensburgh's 167 to a very well deserved win after 34 overs.

And just before the winning target was achieved, Henry reached his richly deserved century. He batted superbly through the innings, scoring his ton from just 109 balls faced and he hit eleven boundaries and one massive six into the Union Street gardens.

Harry Briggs was unbeaten on 15 runs.

Saturday's win at the end of Round 8 in the Western Premiership Two league lifted the team up to fifth position in the league with two wins and two losses from the four matches completed.