Our remarkable season of Junior Cricket concluded on Sunday, when the under 16s were defeated by Dumfries in the final of the Scottish Cup in Paisley.

Many congratulations to Dumfries; on the day, you were worthy winners!

The Doonhamers batted first and were both aggressive and successful in their approach, as they built up a very challenging total of 173 for 2. To chase a total like this, all the batsmen must come off and on Sunday some early wickets fell. Siddharth Seenivasan and Leo Wood, our two wicket-takers, did show their all-round skills by batting well enough to score 23 and 30 runs respectively, but our youngsters were forced on this occasion to concede defeat.

This has been another wonderful season for our young players. We are all very proud of their massive contributions to the cricket life of Aberdeenshire C.C. The players, coaches and families have been real heroes for the club this year. Let’s hope that we see lots more in the years to come!

Our first eleven turned up very much in the mood to compete on Saturday against a Huntly side, very much in contention for the Strathmore Union title. This was to prove a match with many playing highlights for the home side.

Marcus Vila had returned to club duty, following two consecutive half-centuries for his country’s under15 side; from the outset of Saturday’s match, he continued in this rich vein of form, scoring all-round the wicket with a variety of crisply-struck shots. Huntly spinners, Jack Mitchell and Calum Howard trapped Kenny Reid and Manu Saraswat, but our young opening batsman continued to dominate proceedings with an exquisite array of strokes! Our fortunes improved further, when he was joined in the middle by Rutwik Hedge; Marcus and Rutwik then went on a run-spree, building a partnership of 128 runs.

During this wonderful display of batting, the youngster passed every batsman’s favourite target: Marcus scored his first century in first eleven cricket! Such was the impressive range of stroke-play and the obvious confidence on show, it was hard to appreciate the he has yet to reach his fifteenth birthday! This was a special innings and a joy to watch for those at Mannofield; Marcus even had a couple of wobbly moments as he neared his century, which only added to the sense of achievement when he did pass that dream target.

Credit must go also to Rutwik, who batted extremely well in building an aggressive innings of 77runs, which, along with Marcus’ 117 runs laid the foundations for a healthy team total of 304 for 4.

For an in-form team chasing the title, no score should be seen as impossible; indeed, this Huntly side had chased large totals earlier in the season. Our bowlers needed to perform well! This they did, backed up on the day by some excellent fielding. As has so often been the case in the past, the key batsman in the visitors’ line-up was Jack Mitchell. This resolute, highly accomplished, hard-hitting batsman has hurt our cause many times over the years and he was doing likewise on Saturday, until he mistimed a shot off the bowling of Izzy Bandara and was caught by the ever-reliable hands of Luke Bain for a fine 63 runs. We were further boosted at this point by a fine spell of bowling by Nathan Elliot; his three wickets seriously damaged Huntly’s middle-order. Nathan then made a spectacular contribution, with a memorable tumbling dive to take a one-handed catch, which removed the dangerous Aditya Mukhopadhya! Not to be outshone, Skipper, Lewis Munro and Manu Saraswat later showed off their fielding skills, in engineering the dismissals of Huntly players with fine throws to effect run-outs. To their credit, Huntly continued to chase aggressively right to the end but they were dismissed 40 runs short of the Aberdeenshire total.

Winners and losers have different views on a match, but there was a lot in this match for both sides to be pleased about. Huntly’s disappointment was surely tempered by the news that Werner Brand had been removed by Safyaan Sharif for a duck and Freuchie had lost to Perth Doo’cot. Thus, Huntly lead the table with two matches left. One of these is a visit to Freuchie! Exciting times for them! Meantime, our lads make the trip to Dalnacraig, a venue with many happy memories for me. I expect Lewis’ squad to return with full points from this match, thus guaranteeing third place this year.

The clock did roll back a couple of years in our seconds’ match on Saturday in their well-deserved victory at Countesswells on Saturday. David Gamblen has adopted many roles in our sides in the past couple of seasons. Often, he has played with injuries to support the cause and always, he has brought his own, unique brand of enthusiasm to every match; no one supports his team-mates more than Gambo! For some time now, he has declined to use his seam- bowling skills – content to give others opportunities. On Saturday, on his return to action, Gordonians faced and failed to cope with his bewitching action and his challenging variety of deliveries. David managed a five for very few; a good number of these in fact were wides! As a result of Gambo’s fine effort, backed up well by Abid Ali, the home side could muster only 175 runs.

As expected, this proved to be well short of par for a side batting on one of the better artificial pitches. Ali Gohar took to the task of chasing down the target with relish and he struck 8 maximums in a whirlwind innings of 75 runs off just 42 deliveries; even in the modern times, a strike-rate of 178.57 is brisk! However, when Ali bats, this is quite the norm! Akhlaq Bashir and Oscar Vila also batted well and our lads passed the winning-line with just four down, with 15 overs to spare!

On Saturday, they face second-placed Knightriders at home.
This should be another run-feast!

Our thirds ensured a hat-trick of wins for the club on Saturday, winning their away fixture at Ellon. It will hardly come as a surprise to learn that Jonathan Barrett was Ellon’s top scorer; this is not the first time this has happened! I confess to being a huge admirer of the veteran all-rounder, who has served Ellon so well over the years. On Saturday, his departure saw the capitulation of a valiant Ellon side as they fell for just 110 runs. We were well served by all our bowlers; Muteeb Firdous and Vihaan Basavaraju were the leading wicket-takers. Despite losing an early wicket, our lads were largely in control of the chase and passed the Ellon total for the loss of only 3 wickets with many overs to spare. This win, though easier than some this season, was important; right now our gallant threes sit at the top of the table. They have no fixture next weekend, but then face the challenge of an away match to their nearest challengers, Master Blasters!

The fourth eleven continued their first season in the Grades with a home match against Knightriders, who benefitted from first use of the pitch to build up a useful, challenging score of 238 for 8. This innings was built upon a late, middle-order partnership between Bino Zachariah, who fell just five runs short of a ton, and Skipper, Vijender Reddy Kristareddy with 46 runs. Once again, Malcolm and Callum Pratt both bowled effectively for our lads; they each removed two batsmen in the process. Nevertheless, our fourths were facing a daunting target!

So, it proved, as we struggled throughout the innings to match the required scoring rate. Sachit Somasundaram scored a very useful 40 runs and he was well supported by Muteeb Firdous with 28 runs, but our team’s innings ended on the score of 169 for 7, and the points duly go to Knightriders. The fourth eleven has no match next week.

As always, we wish all our players the very best of luck this weekend!