Aussie newcomers show promise despite Greenock cricketers' loss to Kilmarnock

Yahoo

05-05-2025

Greenock Cricket Club's opening match of the new WDCU season ended in defeat at home to Kilmarnock on Saturday – but there were still plenty of positives for the Glenpark side to take from a keenly-contested encounter.
Having won the crucial toss, Kilmarnock skipper Paul Flanagan opted to bowl first, a decision that ultimately laid the groundwork for their successful chase later in the day.
Greenock's innings commenced very positively, with openers Callum Henry and team captain Aryan Sanghera at the crease; in the very first over, Sanghera hit a fine straight drive to the Fox Street boundary, and then in the second over, Aussie amateur Henry, making his Glenpark debut, struck two fine boundaries to put Greenock on 15 without loss.
However, the Kilmarnock opening bowlers, Tom McFadzean and Zeeshan Qamar, quickly found their length and line and put the brakes on the two Greenock openers as only three runs were added in the following five overs.
Sanghera and Henry did get back into run-scoring mode and by the 16th over the Greenock score had moved on to 76 without loss.
Greenock's players celebrate an early Kilmarnock wicket. (Image: alex craig) A bowling change at the beginning of the 17th over heralded a change of direction in the match; with just his second ball, slow bowler Adam Wilson lured Sanghera into a big hit and the Greenock captain was caught on the Fox Street boundary and dismissed for 27.
Kilmarnock then quickly captured the wicket of Henry when the Aussie amateur got a faint edge to a ball from Kilmarnock's South African amateur Daniel Lombard and was caught behind the wicket for 38, leaving Greenock on 83 for two in the 20th over.
Three further wickets fell as the Greenock middle order struggled to deal with the Killie bowlers and towards the end of the 23rd over the home score was a precarious 93 for the loss of five wickets.
The experience of Sam Sanghera, who came in at number six in the batting line-up, helped to steady the innings and gradually the home score moved along.
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But wickets continued to fall and no really meaningful partnerships were created, and when Sanghera was the team's eighth wicket to fall, adjudged LBW for 30 runs in the 40th over, Greenock's innings had crept along to 150.
Just a further 11 runs were added before the innings ended on 161 towards the end of the 45th over; the inability to forge a substantial partnership after the opening 76 runs put on by Aryan Sanghera and Callum Henry ultimately proved costly.
For Kilmarnock, Adam Wilson with three wickets for 25 runs was the visitor's top bowler.
Kilmarnock's chase began with Greenock's opening bowlers, Will Jenkins and Sam Sanghera, aiming to make early inroads, though it was a mix up between the Ayrshire side's openers which led to a very early breakthrough when Chaudhary was run out off just the second ball of the innings.
Jenkins, bowling with with pace and aggression, then had Haider Iqbal caught for five with the score on 12, and Greenock had made a perfect start to the second half of the match.
Greenock took three early wickets against Kilmarnock - but were unable to keep the momentum going. (Image: alex craig) A third wicket, captured when Lombard had his stumps knocked back by Jenkins for six runs with the score on 32, could have heralded a collapse from Kilmarnock, but Oelofse and Flanagan steadied the innings with a 50-run partnership which ended at the start of the 18th over when Oelofse was smartly caught by Sehmat Pandher for 28 off the bowling of Greg McDougall.
And, as so often happens after a good partnership, one wicket leads to a second; two overs later McDougall and Pandher combined once again to remove Flanagan for 34.
But that was to be Greenock's final breakthrough, as Mo Islam and Qamar forged a match-winning sixth-wicket partnership of 79 runs to take Kilmarnock to what had seemed at one stage an unlikely win.
For Greenock, while the loss will be disappointing, the contributions of Australian newcomers Callum Henry and Will Jenkins, will offer a significant positive for the season ahead.
Greenock will need to regroup and learn from this encounter as they look towards their next challenge in the WDCU Premiership Two.
Greenock 161 all out (44.5 overs), 3 points; Kilmarnock 162 for 5 (35.3 overs), 25 points.
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Meanwhile, Greenock's second XI, Glenpark, enjoyed a maximum haul of 25 points from their own league opener away to Galloway in Gatehouse of Fleet.
Batting first, Glenpark struggled to just 104 all out from their innings, with team captain Eddie Ahmad top scorer with 50.
But the Glenpark attack then took centre stage, bowling out Galloway for only 96 to earn the visitors victory by just eight runs.
Arun Nair, with three wickets for five runs, and Hamid Safi, who returned figures of three for eight, were Glenpark's two top bowlers.
Glenpark 104 all out (33.4 overs), 25 points; Galloway 96 all out (30.1 overs), 0 points.
The weekend's Greenock cricket action was completed when a Greenock XI secured a comfortable win over the XL Club at Glenpark on Sunday.
Batting first, the XL Club batsmen were unable to develop any good partnerships and were restricted to just 72 runs; Muhib Ahmadzai took four wickets for just four runs from 6.3 overs and Nikhil Kadyan took three for just a single run in the space of only four overs.
The Greenock XI then lost just one wicket as they overtook the visitors' score in only 19 overs; Shailesh Prabhu retired having scored 25 runs while Sudeep Chaudhary (16) and Cammy Calder (14) were both unbeaten.
The single wicket to fall was Aryan Sanghera who was dismissed for 17 runs.
A new club flag donated by honorary vice-president Roger Hardie was unfurled at the tea interval during the 1st XI match v Kilmarnock on Saturday afternoon.