Ayr raid pays off for ’Lie

Win lifts Buddies’ spirits

After an opening day loss, the Ferguslie first XI travelled to Cambusdoon to play Ayr.

With a glorious day expected and a good batting surface prepared, it was hardly a surprise that Ayr won the toss and batted first.

Before the innings began, both teams observed a minute’s silence in memory of Ferguslie stalwart Sandy Strang.

Once under way, lacklustre would be a great way to describe the first 25 overs of the match for Ferguslie.

Dropped catches, misfields, poor throws – you name it, it happened.

Neil Smith, the benefactor of three drops, made his way to 50, while Michael Papps had also passed 50 before being bowled by Michael English.

A flurry of wickets to English and Jamie Cook saw the scoring rate under control, while Ayr would have been quietly confident of scoring 300.

Smith brought up his hundred, a fabulous knock but if chances were taken, then it would have been a different story.

The end of the innings was somewhat of an anticlimax for Ayr, due to some excellent bowling from Lucas Farndale and Haroon Tahir.

Some much- improved fielding meant that the score of 300, which had been on, ended up being 241 all out.

Smith top scored with 131, while Haroon Tahir was the pick of the bowlers with five wickets for 32, including a hat- trick to finish the innings.

With a target of 242 to win, Ferguslie were confident of achieving that on a good batting surface.

However, things are never as easy as they seem. Gregor Preston-Jones retired hurt with cramp, which meant James Holt joined Michael English after only three overs of play. These two played well to build a platform and when the score was 62,

Holt holed out to mid off for 16 and, just three runs later, Riyaad Henry suffered the same consequence.

This brought Preston-Jones back to the crease, after recovering enough but not fully, and he and Michael took the game in a winning position.

Preston-Jones eventually fell for 54 runs with an LBW to Khan, while a partnership of 97 with English saw their side within 80 runs of winning with 16 overs to go.

English brought up an excellent 100, with the support of Lucas Farndale, on 10 runs, and then David Stafford, 14 not out, seeing the Meikleriggs men over the line with 24 balls to spare.

English was the star of the show finishing 134 not out.