Olney to lead cricketers into season as club’s new captain

DUNFERMLINE and Carnegie Cricket Club will have a new captain for the 2023 season.

Middle order batsman George Olney was appointed as skipper at their Annual General Meeting, which took place last Wednesday at McKane Park.

The club’s first team finished fifth in the East of Scotland Cricket Association league Division Two in the season just finished, having won promotion in 2021, which the meeting heard was a solid performance.

However, Arfan Yousaf, who captained the club last term, but who did not wish to stand for the position for the new season, said that the second half of their campaign was disappointing.

Yousaf, who was the league’s leading run-scorer, commented: “It was a good campaign overall, we went into the second half of it close on the tails of the leading two clubs, but availability became a little bit patchy and the closing few fixtures saw us field much weaker teams, which cost us results.

“Looking ahead, we must try to field our strongest side in every game and work as a really solid, committed unit.”

The second team finished in the top half of Division Six, with their captain, Alan Leitch, commenting that a number of their younger players had shown great promise.

“Our batting was solid all season but, at times, our bowling and fielding was inconsistent, and that cost us being promotion-challengers,” he added.

The election of officebearers also saw spin bowler Dejesh Deenadayalan elected as club president; Usman Saleem as vice-president; Nancy Gibson as secretary; and David Miller as treasurer.