1st XI
The signs were good from the outset for our first eleven. The Lochside strip was green enough to suggest that seam-bowlers would be a handful early in the match. Just to reinforce that notion, Lewis Munro produced a fine delivery to remove Strathmore’s leading batsman, Rhys Tweedy, in the opening over.

The clattering of bails in the first over can seriously influence the moods of both fielding and batting sides. This seemed to be the case on Saturday. The home batsmen certainly had only short spells thereafter, when they exerted any control on proceedings. In contrast the Aberdeenshire medium-pacers each went on to bowl very effectively. Munro and Izzy Bandara both struck a number of times; Izzy is currently in excellent form and in his short spell he looked pacy and accurate. The unluckiest of our bowlers was surely Luke Bain who beat the bat repeatedly through his two spells, but failed to take a wicket.
James Robb was back to his accurate, miserly self, offering the Strathmore side very little. The gusty wind may have been a hindrance to our spinners. Manu did pick up a couple of wickets, but neither he nor Calum seemed as settled as on other days; this innings was made for our seam bowlers!

Manu however, is a young cricketer with three very strong strings to his bow: a skillful batsman and a rapidly improving off-spinner, he is also an outstanding fielder. In this match he defied the gusty conditions to achieve a golden moment in the field, as he took a very challenging, overhead catch to the delight of the travelling casuals.

Chasing a mere 132 runs, all that was required was surely a couple of decent partnerships to see us home. Regrettably, we lost both openers fairly early, but that simply set the stage for Harsha Vithana and Lewis Munro to settle and build match-winning innings of style and aggression, which very soon took the game well away from Strathmore. Harsha quickly caught the eye early in his innings with a flurry of boundaries; the club pro is in rich form at present and hopefully this will continue! Lewis, who insisted yesterday to me that he was “Man of the Match” in this encounter, was equally dismissive of the bowling as he launched a series of hard-hit boundaries.

So, this game was won to make it the fourteenth league win of the season. This latest win was managed without the bowling of Cameron Brown and the batting of Kenny Reid. Can this team do even better in games to come? Certainly, a test awaits them at the end of the runway on Sunday. Following two poor results at the start of the season, Stoneywood -Dyce have been resilient winners, bravely maintaining their challenge for league honours. Sunday’s derby match is set up to be a tasty battle between the two best teams in the league. Hopefully, we will be at full strength with our strongest eleven players in the club set to compete. Our lads will undoubtedly be looking forward to the occasion: a real local derby!

2nd XI
At Mannofield our seconds emerged victors in a high-scoring match against Aberdeen Grammar. For the third successive week, Marcus Vila scored a half-century, as did Rizwan Tahir while another of our talented youngsters, Arnav Saraswat, chipped in with a useful thirty-nine runs. In total, Rahul’s lads managed 236; the skipper yet again carried his bat at number eleven! In reality the side would have benefitted from an injury-free Rahul batting much higher up the order throughout the season but he has done great service by captaining the team so effectively.

A few years back, a team with a total of over two hundred would feel fairly safe in the field. Our beloved game has changed and this total was certainly achievable at Mannofield on Saturday. Grammar set about the chase purposefully until Andrew Hastie dismissed Sandy Keith, caught behind by Rizwan, for thirty-three. However, the visitors did continue to make inroads into the Mannofield total; a fourth wicket partnership between George Gill and Rasib Bashir yielded 76 runs. Abid Ali and Ali Gohar then took charge removing several batsmen to break the back of the Grammar order. A late rally by Muhammad Hassan ended when veteran fielder John Dickinson took a tricky catch at Deep Mid-wicket. I can confirm that that is the same John Dickinson who took the field for Yorkshire at Scarborough once upon a time! In the event, this dismissal heralded the end of Grammar’s prospects and Mannofield went on to win the match. This week the seconds face league leaders, Master Blasters, in the very different setting of Inverdee. This is likely to be a very testing fixture.

3rd XI
Our third eleven was well served by its younger players in their regulation victory over Stoneywood/Dyce. Joseph Scotting and Ethan Shedbal were among the leading scorers and, with a useful innings by Muteeb Furdous, our lads posted a total of 195. Leo Wood and Mark Broadribb each claimed three wickets as Phil’s side bowled Stoneywood/Dyce out for 100. It is one more measure of the improvements in our performances this season that our thirds have now won the majority of their league fixtures, real progress from last season! This week sees the youngsters on home soil against the league leaders, Grampian.