Falkland and Meigle to serve up tasty clash

With a full card thankfully recorded on the opening Saturday of the Strathmore and Perthshire NEC, even at this early stage, some markers have been put down for the rest of the season.

Although this may only be round two, the round one results have already led to a tasty confrontation this week between Falkland, who posted the highest score of last weekend, and Meigle who had the top scorer of the day in their ranks.

Falkland’s Ben Strachan was the main man with both bat and ball, scoring 81 before taking 6-20 against ASI Gordonians, while Raju Gayashan had an unbeaten 88 for Meigle in their win over Forfarshire 2nd.

Meigle come off a Citylets Cup win on Sunday over Edinburgh CC so this could be a close one.

At Dalnacraig, Dundee HSFP will be looking to build on last week’s 53-run win over Mannofield – pro Tom McFarlane’s 63 including five fours and two sixes – when they face Strathmore.

On the other hand, Strathie will be looking for some better support down the batting order for opener Gary Hewitson and James Calhoun who with 46 and 36 were the only batsmen to get on top of the Perth Doo’cot bowling in their two-wicket defeat.

After that Dundee defeat, Mannofield need an early win under their belt and it could come against Arbroath United who will perhaps have a bit more experience in the side than the one which went down heavily to Stoneywood Dyce in the opener but still could be pretty vulnerable.

Meanwhile S/D will make the short journey to ASI Gordonians and another spell by Jamie King like the 7-27 he produced last week could go a long way to making it two from two for the visitors.

At Doo’cot Park last week, Wayne Sullivan’s 5-26 had Strathmore on the back foot at 137 all out but it took a really solid unbeaten 32 from Jack McCrearer to dig the home side out the mire and edge to a two-wicket win so Perth will be wary of a Forfarshire 2nd outfit when they travel today.

Last week the home side saw a useful start from Graeme Garden with 44 and Craig McConnochie’s 35 disappear as they ended up with a very modest 151-8 before being pummelled by Meigle’s Gayashan and Peter Drummond Jr.