Kelburne fall to bowling attack by Stenhousemuir
Title charge hits the buffers after a second defeat on the spin
Kelburne Cricket Club slumped to their second defeat on the spin as they fell to a two- wicket loss at the hands of Stenhousemuir.
The Paisley side remain in third spot despite back-to-back losses at Whitehaugh to leave their title charge needing a resurgency.
Kelburne won the toss at put themselves in to bat.
However, things got off to a poor start for the hosts as opener Ryan Morrow was caught out by Rushdie Jappie off of the bowling of Zeb Alamgir.
Fellow opener Matthew McMillan didn’t fair much better and was a victim of Alamgir for only seven runs.
The pairing of William Allan and Cephas Zhuwao helped bring the scoring up, with Allan taking 25 runs before being caught out by Chris Halcrow.
Zhuwao mustered 14 runs before also being caught by Halcrow.
Andrew Miller notched 25 runs before he was caught and bowled by Halcrow, while Jappie set about the middle order with relative ease as he took the wickets of Donald Campbell and Dougie Wylie.
The wickets continued to fall and Kelburne were powerless to stop the Stenny bowling attack which eventually closed out the innings at 131 all out.
In response, Kelburne got off to the perfect start as they aimed to halt their rivals in their tracks as soon as they possibly could. The Kelburne bowlers knew they would have to be at their best to prevent the Stenhousemuir batsmen from reaching their target of 142.
With the ball in hand, Wylie put Kelburne on the front foot as he took the wickets of Stenhousemuir’s two openers for just five runs.
Ryan Morrow was next to seize the ball and he followed Wylie’s lead by taking the next two wickets for just eight runs.
But next to the crease was Stenny batsman Talor Scott, and he quickly put his side back on track with a 67 run not out innings.
He was ably assisted by the likes of Alamgir and Halcrow as they steadily rallied towards their target before taking a two-wicket victory with just over 10 overs remaining.