Ferguslie topple Kelburne in derby
Visitors edge it to head for the top of the table
Craig Ritchie
Saturday saw the first Paisley derby of the season between Cochran Dickie Kelburne and local rivals Ferguslie at Whitehaugh.
Kelburne were searching for their first win of the season and Ferguslie were looking to continue their their push towards the top of the table.
Ferguslie won the toss and elected to bowl. The home team started well with a tight spell of bowling from Jamie MacDonald and Steven McLister in particular.
McLister picked up the vital wicket of Michael English in the 12th over when he edged a delivery to MacDonald who took a good catch at first slip with the score on 35.
The Kelburne skipper then made changes to the bowling attack in search of further wickets and was rewarded when Hamilton picked up the wicket of Holt with the score on 52 in the 22nd over.
Five overs later, the players were forced off the field due to thunder and heavy rain and thanks to this the game was reduced to 45 overs a side.
On the resumption, Ferguslie looked to up the scoring in their remaining 17 overs.
However they lost the wicket of professional Riyaad Henry to the bowling of Wylie as he looked to push the score on and left the visitors 90 for 3 off 30 overs.
The departure of Henry brought the dangerous Stafford to the crease.
He started in positive fashion along with Gregor Preston–Jones who was playing a key role in holding the Ferguslie innings together, and they added to the total at a good rate and took it swiftly to 172 before Stafford departed for a quickfire 40 runs at just better than a run a ball.
Preston–Jones left for a well- made 87 in the dying overs with a fine catch in the deep by Jacques Porter off of the bowling of Morrow. A few further blows from Ferguslie took the final tally to 211 for 5 off the allocated overs.
The score was then revised with the Duckworth- Lewis calculation which took the Ferguslie score to 221, leaving Kelburne with 222 to win.
The wickets were shared between the home side’s bowlers, with the pick of these being McLister, who had impressive figures of one for 16 off of his allocated 10 overs. In response to Ferguslie’s first inning Kelburne promoted overseas amateur Bradley Joynt to open with young Alex Gilmour as the hosts posted a positive intent in chasing down the require runs.
Kelburne managed to add 30 to the score before Gilmour fell for seven with the score on 30 in the 10th over and Kelburne were dealt a further blow when Porter was bowled by Henry for 0 to leave the Kelburne reply in trouble at 30 for two.
Hussain and Joynt were able to rebuild and took the score to 70 before Hussain was dismissed for 16 via an excellent caught and bowled by Ferguslie off spinner Haroon Tahir. Kelburne still continued to push the scoring rate along in pursuit of the required runs.
Joynt began to really flourish with some powerful shots and was finding the boundary regularly, but Kelburne continued to lose wickets with O’Connell departing for 17 and Wylie quickly followed, leaving them on 160 for five in the 34th over.
As the game moved into the final 10 overs it was delicately poised and with Joynt still at the crease, Kelburne were always in with a chance of making the required runs to earn their first victory of the season. Joynt departed for an excellent 90 with the score on 170 when he was bowled.
McLister took over from Joynt and was scoring freely before he was caught deep for 28.
Kelburne lost wickets as they continued the chase and the inning ended up on 210 for nine as the hosts fell 11 runs short of what would have been an excellent achievement to gain the required runs.
The win takes Ferguslie to the top of the table, leaving Kelburne at the bottom and in search of their first win in the league.