Falkland claim Gordonians’ scalp as Meigle go out in front

The Strathmore and Perthshire NEC reached the halfway stage last Saturday, with a real shock result at Scroggie Park and a significant change at the top of the table.

Falkland, having played only three from eight games and after slumping to a five-wicket defeat at the hands of Dundee HSFP last week, faced unbeaten joint league leaders ASI Gordonians.

Falkland batted first and Harshacoorey Nawalange hit an astonishing 146, coming in at number three with 24 on the board, the total was 228 when he was bowled by Prashant Wig.

Adam Ferguson had 38 to his credit, helping Falkland to a formidable 275-5 then Gordonians looked as though they were going to make a real fight of it.

However, when Aman Arora, caught by Craig Nellies off Nawalange’s bowling no less, and Hamanshu Saraswat went for 36 and 35 respectively, there was no one to take the fight to Falkland and the Aberdeen men were all out for 190. Lyle Robertson took 3-29 and Darren Pearce 2-12 as Falkland claimed a huge win by 85 runs.

Meigle are the only undefeated side in the league and top the table with a 100% record despite having set a catchable target of 150-8 for Perth Doocot.

Shahzeb Saeed reached 39 but when he was bowled by Asif Naeem with the score on 89, Meigle managed only to reach a very modest total for Perth to chase. But Alan Neave took 4-25 with Perth all back in the pavilion with 115 to their name and four overs left.

At Dalnacraig, Dundee HSFP’s Rashin Upamal claimed 49 of the 122 they reached with Lewis Robinson taking 3-18 and James Sim 3-30 for ion8 Forfarshire 2nd.

Majid Rasheed ended with figures of 6-12, the other Rasheed, Zahid, took 2-15 as Dundee ended the visitors hopes of getting anywhere near their first win as they slumped to an embarrassing 40 all out in 17 overs.

Mannofield looked to going along nicely at 94-4 after 23 overs but were all out for 132 and Strathmore cruised past that total for the loss of only one wicket.

At St Andrews, Kinloch missed out on their first win of the league season when they went down by two wickets to Arbroath United.

The home side set a target of 158 all out but with one over remaining, Arbroath doggedly hauled themselves to 159-8 to clinch the second win of their league campaign.