Time to make a statement as four of top five meet

Four of the top five in the Strathmore and Perthshire NEC are in opposition this weekend and some tasty cricket looks to be on the cards.

Current title holders and joint league leaders Arrowdawn Gordonians travel to face a Perth Doo’cot side who have won one from two but fell victim of last weekend’s rain.

It could be that the visitors have just a bit too much firepower with bat and ball for the Fair City men.

Himanshu Saraswat, Hamza Arshad and Debo Barman have all scored more than 40 in the past couple of weeks, while skipper Aman Arora has a 71 under his belt against Kinloch and wickets in the past two games.

Perth will be looking to overseas amateur Emuel Knoesen with the ball and Trevor Brown and Graham Ferguson with the bat to keep them in the game.

Stoneywood Dyce share top spot with Gordonians and play host to Meigle this week after wins over Mannofield, Dundee and Kinloch.

The last of those came in week three in the main due to a sparkling 57 from Jack Lindsay and a solid 3-21 by Liam Lindsay.

Disappointed to have lost their 100% record last week to Strathmore in a tight match, Meigle will be looking for a return to form and maintain their challenge in the top half of the table.

Dundee HSFP were the other side to lose out to the weather last week and they pitch up at Mannofield hoping that they can maintain the form which saw them dump Strathmore by seven wickets a fortnight ago.

Balaji Ramalingam and Majid Rashid both hit 87 in that week’s total of 279, but Mannofield got to 238 last week before losing out to Arbroath by 10 runs so both sides are capable of posting big scores in what could be a cracker of a game.

At Lochlands, Arbroath face a Kinloch side who have a similar played three won one record.

However, the home side will be boosted by their first win last week when Bryce Carnegie and Darryll Sinclair rattled up 115 and 75, respectively, in the narrow defeat of Mannofield.

Kinloch know they need to improve having not won since the opening day of the season.

That first win for Strathmore last week should give them confidence when they travel to take on bottom of the table Forfarshire’s 2nd XI.

As the Forfar men ended Meigle’s unbeaten run, Craig Stevenson and Nigel Hazel impressed as they both posted scores of 43.

Strathmore totalled just four short of 200 and they could run up another fair score in a match where home advantage may not count for too much.