Huge congratulations to our coaches, skippers and, above all, our players as we recorded another 100% weekend for our four senior sides! The success of these teams follows a good result by our under 13s who progressed in the Scottish Cup after an away tie to Dundee High School. Also in midweek, our senior T20 side emerged clear winners over Huntly on Thursday in a match that showed Jordan van der Berg running into form in entertaining fashion!

When conditions in a match clearly favour one side, it has a duty to cash in!

Aberdeenshire did just that at Meigle on Saturday. A brief wicket inspection had revealed a strip that recently had seen too much rain. The lingering moisture was going to make things tough for the early batsmen, as long as the bowlers landed their deliveries accurately. We won the toss and it was up to our lads to perform! Our growing list of talented seam-bowlers includes a number currently running into form and Lewis Munro, Arnav Saraswat and James Robb each bowled with precision and purpose, proving far too good for their Perthshire opponents this time. The home side could manage only 47 runs, as Lewis (4 wickets), Arnav (3 wickets) and James (3 wickets) bowled them out.

There was an early scare as our openers were victims of the conditions, but Arnav, Jordan van der Berg and Ethan Shedbal together, did enough to see ‘Shire picking up one of the easiest wins of the season.

We now lie second to Dundee High and on Saturday welcome the reigning Champions, Freuchie. The Fifers have started the season slowly and maximum points are essential from this fixture to maintain our challenge in this intriguing season.

There were more than six hundred runs scored on Mannofield in Saturday’s Grade1 fixture with Crescent/ Dunecht. Akhlaq Bashir began this run-feast with a skillfully- constructed century, including 9 well-struck boundaries and two maximums. An impressive showing by Akhlaq, but even the free-scoring opener was to be eclipsed on this occasion by a monumental display of hitting by Ali Hashmi, who set about the luckless Crescent bowlers with relentless violence, in scoring 165 runs undefeated, which included 10 boundaries, but saw him clearing the ropes no less than 16 times!

Wow!

Our final total of 346 was going to take some beating. However, Crescent showed their fighting spirit and no lack of skill in their battle to overcome this huge target. Initially, Izzy Bandara had halted them in their tracks, by dismissing three early batsmen. In a defiant response, two key performers emerged from the visitors’ ranks in Ameer Abdullah Khan and Sohaib Tahseen, who built a magnificent partnership of 172 runs and brought Crescent within sight of this most challenging target. Time for Akhlaq Bashir to show his all-round credentials by removing Tahseen for 72 runs to end the menacing threat of this heroic duo. As is so often the case, his free-scoring team-mate followed almost immediately to the bowling of Ashfaq Bashir for a splendid 101 runs. The remaining Crescent players failed to maintain the challenge and the visitors fell short by 79 runs, pleasing the home fans, who had enjoyed a thoroughly entertaining match!

Skipper, Rizwan Tahir, is still a very happy man, as his side currently top the table and now face the prospect of a challenge from 2nd Grampian at Inverdee on Saturday. On current form, our lads should extend their fine 100% record during this match.

Third team skipper, Lokesh Saraswat, enthused as he praised his team for a very solid performance on Saturday out at the lovely Burnett Park against Banchory.

Noah Kelly opened securely for the thirds, scoring an accomplished 33 runs; if only his work would allow, there is little doubt that Noah would be a leading bat in our club. There were useful contributions farther down the order from Aayush Sinha (35 runs) and Vikaash Saravanan (25 runs) as Lokesh saw his side post a useful, challenging total of 204 runs.

Mark Broadribb is an effective and consistent performer for this team and he struck three times in the early overs to do serious damage to the home side’s hopes of a successful run chase. Broadribb was well backed up in his efforts by the promisingly talented Kanishk Tata, who picked up three quick wickets cheaply; Aayush Sinha then finished the match off with two late wickets to leave Banchory well adrift of their target. Lokesh takes his side to Inverdee on Saturday to face Tigers, with whom they share third spot in the league. A tight match is in prospect for our Threes, who have started their season in some style following their promotion to Grade 2.

Remarkably, our fourth eleven also posted a huge score on Mannofield on Sunday – 308/4 against a luckless Fraserburgh Reserve side. The innings was a personal triumph for young Aayush Sinha; Aayush repeatedly drove and cut beautifully, showing his skills on both back and front foot to hoist a marvelous personal contribution of 134 runs undefeated. He was ably supported by young Vihaan Basavaraju, with a lively innings of 58 runs. Tanish Kirodian and Oscar Vila also made useful contributions to this mammoth total.

Fraserburgh’s vain hopes were damaged at the outset, when, experienced skipper – Michael Watson – was trapped in front of his stumps by Sachit Somasundaram for 4 runs. Sandeepan Bhattacharjee and Umar Khalid did build a very useful 71 runs partnership, but the scale of this challenge was just too much for the Broch players on the day and they fell well short of their target.

Skipper, Umesh Basavaraju, takes his young side to meet Stoneywood/Dyce on Saturday. These sides met a couple of weeks ago and our “noisy neighbours” came out on top. Maybe, we can reverse that result this time around!

As always, the very best of luck to all our players in their quest to make 2026 special for Aberdeenshire Cricket Club!