League hotting up at both ends at halfway stage

The league at top and bottom shows little change from week two as it reached the halfway stage but there is the promise of things hotting up as the season enters the second half.

Stoneywood/Dyce ended the first half of their campaign with a 33-run win over Strathmore keeping them comfortably at the top of the table.

S/D posted 203 for seven with Shaun Koetzer (41), Liam Lindsay (41) and Andrew Rayer (34) making the main contributions and although James Ellis. with 46. and Mohamed Shoaib’s 38 kept Strathmore chasing, it was the quality of Jaques Koester’s bowling with four for 14 which saw the visitors all back in the pavilion for 170.

At Countesswells, Gordonians kept a firm grip on second with a 33-run victory over Mannofield.

Anyone watching Forfarshire II against Kinloch in the bottom-ofthe-table clash got best value for money by a long way.

Kinloch batted first and with a cracking 89 from Pershant Wig and Arun Trividi hitting 39, they posted a challenging 238 for the loss of seven wickets.

James Sim was the home side’s most successful bowler with five for 50.

Shire chased the total with a vengeance and with two balls left, smacked the winning run with five wickets down. Will Hardie claimed 66, Graham Garden 44 and Craig McConnachie an unbeaten 39 in a cracking match which sees Kinloch now drop to the bottom.

Perth Doo’cot were unable to follow up the previous weeks heroics when they had beaten leaders Stoneywood, struggling to back up Curtis Taylor’s 78 not out which left Meigle facing a catchable 163.

Peter Drummond and Neil Wimberley took up the challenge and were unbeaten on 87 and 65 respectively when they collected the necessary runs for the loss of one wicket and four overs to spare.

It looked at one point like the 177 Arbroath United scored at Dalnacraig was going to be enough, knocks of 68 by Daryll Sinclair, 37 by Jack Plomer and 35 from Ben O’Mara a big part of the total.

Dundee HSFP then found themselves on 41 for six but the arrival of Zahid Rasheed changed that dramatically as he slammed 91 runs as the Dundee side won with 12 overs to spare.