On Saturday, they wrapped up the title with a decisive victory over a very well-organized, enthusiastic Crescent/Dunecht side, in front of a large crowd of joyous supporters!

Though we emerged clear and worthy winners, Saturday’s game was a true test of our playing skills and our determination, under pressure! The visitors did well to win the toss, and will have wasted little time before inserting us on a firm, green pitch. The Crescent opening pair, Mohammad Samad and Srirar Hariharan took advantage of the lively wicket to put our openers under pressure straightaway; a few balls bounced and several moved off the wicket, testing the defences of both Ewan Davidson and Marcus Vila. Ewan fell early on, while his young partner showed considerable skill in coping with this testing examination of his batting credentials. Marcus stood firm and found time to strike three boundaries in one of his best short innings for the club to date. A rush of blood and a resultant mis-judgement saw him depart for a fine innings of 26 runs. In fact, Marcus ended up as our top scorer of the day; there were useful contribution from Ethan Shedbal, Lewis Munro and Akhlaq Bashir, but none of our players was able to mount a sustained resistance to an accurate bowling attack, backed up by enthusiastic fielders, positioned very shrewdly! Crescent did very well in our innings to make use of the challenging conditions to play with great discipline!

To our great credit, despite a few careless errors, we had battled on under pressure to bat throughout almost all our overs and hoist a respectable score of 190 runs. Admittedly, most neutrals would have judged the visitors to be ahead on points at this stage. However, there were two points that seemed to be in our favour at this nervous halfway mark: a distinguished, international coach had sneaked a look at the pitch during the break, and had assured me that there would yet be plenty in it for our bowlers. In addition, I was really worried, which had usually been a good sign in the past!

I was much less concerned after the seventh delivery of Crescent’s innings, when Arnav Saraswat announced his return to the side by clean-bowling Sasikanth Dumpa. Arnav has had a few great moments this season; he has bowled with accuracy and venom, aggressively challenging every batsman. He followed up this initial breakthrough with the prized scalp of Jesse Joseph Adams, so often the mainstay of Crescent’s batting this year! With these key dismissals, the youngster set the tone for our display in the field; his bowling colleagues joined in with relish, as they hunted down our shaken opponents.

Some nerves did show, as we faced the final hurdle of a thrilling league season: while our bowlers stuck well to their task, probing accurately for openings, our normally reliable fielding showed a few cracks at times; catches went down! Meanwhile, Crescent did stage a mini revival, as Rudra Chouksey and Sriram Hariharan built a solid partnership, that had me fidgeting again! Up stepped Luke Bain to take an important return catch, which ended any realistic threat to our progress towards the title. Other bowlers played their parts in this victorious finale to our league season. Our skipper, Lewis Munro bowled an accurate line, at a challenging pace, for his full ten overs; he picked up two important wickets and did so economically, thus increasing the pressure on the visitors. Akhlaq Bashir, once more the deadly finisher, in the closing overs of an innings, picked up the wickets of three tail-enders for very few runs, finally bringing down a victorious curtain on a thrilling and highly intriguing season

The statistics will show that we defeated Crescent by our work in the field but, on reflection, I believe that our batsmen also deserve credit: by digging in and battling for spells during our innings, we did just enough to set a total, that simply asked too many questions of our gallant opponents on the day.

Celebrations followed and it was marvelous to have a large assembly of former players present to witness this victory as the youngsters of today plot their road back to the top of Scottish cricket. It was fabulous to see the seniors there! Well done, Floppy!

Our wonderful seconds just failed to complete their league programme undefeated, losing their final match against a very useful Aberdeen Grammar side at Rubislaw. A fine, aggressive and undefeated knock of 75 runs by Malik Momin Haider was the key element in our opponents’ innings; in total, they mounted a score of 198 runs. The conditions at Rubislaw require hard and often airborne blows to challenge a total like this; none of our ball-strikers was able to build a sustained attack on this target; just this once, it did not happen for Rizwan Tahir’s troops. Credit must go to our opponents on the day; no other side had got the better of us in this fabulously, successful season, but the Grammar lads were worthy winners in the end. They alone, managed to take our prized scalp!

Earlier in the season, we were denied progress in the Aberdeenshire Cup, the flagship knock -out trophy in local cricket, sadly losing a bowl-off! I know Rizwan and his players were disappointed by this set-back. Is it too much to dream of correcting that in 2027? I don’t believe so!

Third eleven skipper, Lokesh Saraswat, did his best to galvanise his team’s innings, by scoring a useful 28 runs against title-chasing Knight Riders. Sadly, his depleted batting line-up found run-scoring hard; Aarav Kola did resist and managed 16 runs, but others struggled and the final tally of 105 runs looked well short of par.

So, it proved! Despite a sterling effort from pace-man, Leo Wood, in capturing three early wickets, Ambrose John and Vidhyasagar Vivekanandan formed the match-winning partnership, as Knight Riders stayed in contention with Huntly for the title. Our lads do need another win from their remaining two fixtures, to ensure survival in this league. On Saturday they host Portcullis. Make yourselves available if at all possible this week-end, so we can field a strong line-up; this is a tie that we can win and need to do so.

Vihaan Basaraju was our star man in the fourth eleven’s eighth victory of the season at Mannofield on Sunday, when he scored a fine half-century against high-flying Grampian. Skipper, Umesh, also chipped in with an important contribution of 34 runs as our gallant fourths scored 188 runs, a highly respectable total. With the weather threatening, our opponents lost too many early wickets in a chase that was always likely to be judged by Duckworth-Lewis. Young bowlers, Aayush Nagdeve and Neel Bhamare were on the mark, as five of our opponents were dismissed early on, and this ultimately pushed their victory target beyond reach; stumps were drawn after 24 overs and our boys had secured the points.

So, Umesh and his players are in a healthy position in mid-table, with just one fixture remaining- a very creditable effort all round!

With our third eleven facing a vital match this weekend, all the members wish our players well!