Aberdeenshire through to quarter finals

Aberdeenshire were keen to bounce back from their loss to Arbroath on Saturday and had no hesitation in batting first on a fantastic looking strip at sunny Mannofield.

Calum Howard, top scorer from the day before, departed for a duck trying to cut a ball that was too close, however this didn't deter opening parter Chris Venske who blitzed 75 from 55 balls and looked well set to add to his two centuries this season.

Hayes van der Berg had been struggling for runs of late but together with Venske the pair added a hundred for the second wicket as both players flayed the visiting attack to all parts. The pair added 121 from 93 balls before Venske departed in the 17th over with the score on 129.

Harsha Cooray struck a four and a six before miscuing to point for 17, which brought Graeme Tomlinson to the crease to join van der Berg.

The pair worked the ball around through the middle overs as Hayes registered his first fifty for Aberdeenshire. He didn't stop there as a combination of good running and good six hitting took him to a maiden Aberdeenshire century. Together the pair added 103 before Hayes fell trying to whip one through the leg side for a well made 104.

Tomlinson went for 42 in the dying overs but Kenny Reid (36 from 26) was able to add some late innings fireworks to propel the Dons to 306-8 from their 50 overs.

Calum Howard took the new ball, looking to make amends for his duck earlier in the day, and a tidy spell of 7 overs, 2-25 did just that as he removed both openers.

Overseas amatuer Brad Williams was in fine form for the visitors and formed the main resistance as he worked his way past fifty and into the nineties.

Good spells from Rahul Chandu, Hamish Niven (2-31) and Harsha Cooray (2-48) were bowled during the middle phases to restrict the visitors and Tyler Buchan came on to clean up the tail, taking 4-39 including a career first hat-trick to take the final three wickets. Brad Williams was left stranded on 99* at the non-strikers end as those wickets fell, and to further increase the misery he was called for running one short during his innings also!

Stirling bowled out for 185 in the end to seal a resounding victory for the Dons, who will face the winners of Ferguslie vs Uddingston away from home in the next round on June 29th.