Village need to win this weekend against Perth

Meigle lost ground in the SPCU North East Championship title race, though were done a favour from an unlikely source.

Games between the villagers and Gordonians have been some of the best of the past four or five seasons with both teams regularly in the top three in the league and meeting in cup finals.

This game had much drama and incident and was again a reminder anyone can beat anyone in the highly competitive championship that covers the Caledonia region.

The Granite City outfit elected to bat and got off to the worst possible start when they lost skipper and arguably the league’s best batsman, Aman Arora for no score.

A mix up with his opening partner saw Jamie Morrison launch the ball to Peter J Drummond to seal the visiting skipper’s dismissal.

Iain Stewart made it 13 for two trapping keeper/batsman Sree Devidas LBW for 12.

Home captain Matthew Farmer shuffled his bowlers around well in the extremely windy conditions.

Spin played its part with Tommy Hales left-arm ‘tweakers’ and Ross McDonald’s big, turning off-breaks claiming five scalps.

The tail ‘wagged’ for Gordos and they amassed a reasonable 147.

Meigle had their strongest batting line up of the season available, however, contrived to end 24 runs short.

Chris Forbes again showed he is one of the top five bowlers in the championship with an outstanding nine over spell with four maidens and a crackerjack Yorker to dismiss Village Cup star Tom Duff.

Tyler Aitchison suffered a back injury which saw him come out number 10 with a runner, with half a chance of victory after a quality partnership between the gritty Charles Clark and the indefatigable Jamie Morrison who played the shot of the day with an outstanding cover drive.

With 11 balls and 24 runs required Aitchison’s runner Charles Clark was run out by a 45 yard direct throw from Ahmed.

There was no doubt it was out and the defending champions duly celebrated animatedly.

Meigle will need to win against Perth Doo’cot at Victory Park this Saturday to get back into third spot after the merged clubmen inflicted runaway leaders Stoneywood/Dyce a first defeat.

The Doo’cot Parkers overseas players will be key, as will in form Curtis Taylor – who scored a century at Mannofield recently.

It’s a 1pm start.