Comprehensive win for the 1st XI at East Kilbride

East Kilbride v Greenock 1st XI
Western Premiership Two
Saturday 16th May 2026

East Kilbride 68   TA Matthews 5 for 8, CS Calder 3 for 24
Greenock 1st XI 73 for 1   N Kadyan 44*

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

Scorecard

The 1st XI gained their first league win of the season on Saturday with a comprehensive 9 wicket victory over East Kilbride at their opponents Torrance House ground. The win provided a welcome 25 points and moved the team up to seventh position in the Western Premiership Two league table.

After two away matches and losses against top of the table sides Langside and Dumfries, it was third time lucky for the team who were once again travelling away from home.

East Kilbride won the toss and elected to bat first. However, the loss of opening bat Craig Smith, caught and bowled by Cammy Calder for just seven runs in the fourth over of play, was an early setback for them.

Calder made a second breakthrough with the last ball of the eighth over when he had Adeel Khan caught by Toby Matthews for 14 with the score on 37.

The loss of the two early wickets was clearly a massive blow to East Kilbride for the remaining eight wickets fell with little resistance as the batting order imploded.

With the score on 41 for 3 wickets in the ninth over, the experienced Stewart Kampman became right arm off spinner Toby Matthews' first victim of the afternoon. And his wicket was very closely followed by four more.

Firstly, Cammy Calder picked up his third wicket of the afternoon when he knocked back the stumps of Shahid Abbasi at the very start of the tenth over. The East Kilbride middle order danger man, a centurion the previous week, was removed second ball without scoring.

Then Toby Matthews picked up two wickets in two balls during the eleventh over. Gavin Meikle was caught at backward square leg by Cammy Calder with the third ball of the over and fourth ball South African amateur Driaan Swanevelder was returned to the clubhouse, clean bowled with a 'golden duck' to his name.

Matthews picked up his fourth wicket of the match when East Kilbride captain David Doyle was given out LBW. 48 for 7.

Harish Negi and Mo Afzaal took the home score to 61 before Chirag Pandher came into the Greenock bowling attack and with his very first ball removed Afzaal, bowled for 7 runs.

The team then lost wicketkeeper Adam McGuirk midway through the seventeenth over when he suffered a nasty facial injury which required hospital treatment.

After the stoppage for McGuirk's injury, and once Chirag Pandher had taken over behind the stumps, Matthews picked up his fifth wicket of the innings when he had Shahid Mahmood trapped LBW.

And the East Kilbride innings ended with the first ball of the nineteenth over when Imran Chaudhary was run out by a smart piece of fielding by Nikhil Kadyan, who made a direct hit of the stumps as the batsmen attempted a quick single to short mid-wicket.

Toby Matthews with 5 wickets for just 8 runs from 6.1 overs was the top bowler while Cameron Calder also made an important impact with his 3 wickets for 24 runs in the early part of the innings.

Skipper Sanghera made an enforced change to the batting line-up as a result of McGuirk’s injury and opened with Nikhil Kadyan and Shailesh Prabhu.

The partnership looked to be progressing quite steadily with 16 runs on the board midway through the fourth over. But then Shailesh Prabhu (5) got a faint edge to a delivery from David Doyle and was caught by wicketkeeper Craig Smith standing up to the stumps.

But that wicket proved to be the only success for the Lanarkshire side as Nikhil Kadyan and Aryan Sanghera took control and saw the team to a very comfortable win.

Kadyan was the main scorer in the 57 run unbeaten partnership which took Greenock to victory with the last ball of the 12th over. He scored 44 not out in his innings which included six boundaries and which brought the game to an end with a six over the long-on boundary.

Aryan Sanghera played a fine back up role with 14 not out as the team eased to what was an important first league win of the season.

Next up for the team is a first home match of the season at Glenpark against league leaders Uddingston next Saturday.