The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Frustration as sides denied chance of win by downpours
The only thing worse than a match being cancelled by bad weather is when a game has started, a result looks on the cards for one of the sides then the weather intervenes causing huge frustration all round.
That was the fate of four out of the five matches in Strathmore and Perthshire NEC on Saturday when thunder and lightning accompanied by downpours of biblical proportions sent the players scampering for the pavilion and ensured a less than satisfactory result in the remaining game.
At Lochpark, league leaders Meigle had posted a hefty 251-5 thanks to a century from Raju Gayashan and unbeaten 37 and 23 for Gordon Lamb and Alan Neave respectively.
Strathmore were struggling at 27-3 when the heavens opened.
A similar situation occurred at Mannofield. Dundee set a target of 200 with Ned Wright notching 40, Sami Ejaz 43 and Rahul Chandu taking 5-46.
With Mannofield in bother at 40-2, Dundee looked to be on course for a possible result but thunder and lightning forced the players off.
Things were no better at Doocot Park where Perth Doocot faced Kinloch with no result forthcoming.
At Lochlands Arbroath United were 30-3 chasing Falkland’s 214, with Cameron Nellies having slammed 44 and Darren Pearce not out on 37, with Alan Hogg having taken 4-33, all to no avail.
At Countesswells, the one result in the league gave ion8 Forfarshire 2nd their first win of the campaign as they chased ASI Gordonians 148 and were making a decent fist of it.
Gordonians had struggled to their total with Prashant Wig the only batsman to make any impression with his 38 as Graeme Garden cleaned up the tail with 3-16 and Graeme Quinn had 3-19.
Garden was unbeaten on 40 when the rains came but the 72-1 Forfarshire had reached in 24 overs was enough to see them claim the scalp of the second-placed side in the table under ELC rules applied when weather intervenes.
Although there were four out of five games with no result this week, the win in Aberdeen for ion8 Forfarshire drops ASI Gordonians to fifth with Dundee HSFP moving into second behind leaders Meigle.