Double delight for county cricketers as two sides win tough fixtures

Jul 8 2010 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

THE heavy rain on Sunday put the skids on West Lothian County Cricket Association Third XIs fixture but the county’s other two had both beaten the weather by playing a day earlier.

On Saturday, West Lothian First XI travelled west to take on Weirs in SNCL Division Two.

West Lothian needed to win to keep their title dreams alive and they did just that to move up to third in the table with eight games left to play.

They were back to full strength after missing key personnel in their narrow loss at league leaders Dumfries a week earlier and were desperately keen to make amends for the missed opportunity to de-throne the leaders.

Weirs won the toss and elected to bat first as the sun shone in Glasgow and their decision proved to be a good one as they raced to 125 for 3.

County stepped up a gear at this point though and some fine bowling from George Heath with four wickets, Fahad Ahmed with 2 and Tony McKenna saw them restrict their hosts to 202 from their allocated overs setting County 203 for victory.

Opening the batting for West Lothian, Jimmy McOscar set about chasing down the total in a hurry with a quickfire 30 then overseas players Jared Cookson and Kruger Van Wyk continued the assault with 58 and 62 respectively leaving county requiring 45 runs from 29 overs.

Although hard work was made of this task by losing a further four wickets, veteran Davey Fleming saw the Linlithgow club home with 10 overs to spare to the relief of the travelling support.

Skipper Andy Raven said: “Despite this victory and other sides doing us a favour at the weekend we really need to knuckle down for the final eight games if we are to achieve our goals.

“If we can perform to our potential then we will be very tough to stop and our rivals are fully aware of this.”

This Saturday West Lothian host Freuchie and will be looking for revenge after a narrow defeat in Fife earlier in the season. .

Meanwhile, West Lothian’s Second XI hosted league leaders Clackmannan County’s First XI at Boghall on Saturday.

Iain Snedden won the toss and showed faith in his young team's bowling and fielding potential by asking Clacks to bat first.

The faith was repaid almost immediately when Gregor Thomson bowled Clacks opener Oliver with the score on just 5.

It got better for the 2s when Don Bennie removed the other opener five overs later and when

Clacks captain Craig Black was caught behind off the bowling of Thomson.

Shortly after that, the league leaders were reeling at 24-3.

G. Oliver struck 4 fours on his way to 18 — the top score of the innings — as Clacks looked to fight back.

But wickets were falling at the other end and the youthful West Lothian outfit were in raptures when he was caught behind by Snedden by the bowling of Grant Raven (2-13).

There was little resistance from the tail and the innings was rapped up in the 28th over, with

Clacks posting a meagre 88 - Thomson, Raven, Bennie and Kilpatrick each taking two wickets apiece.

In reply, the 2s cruised to their modest target, with Michael Miller and Ken Thomson picking up runs freely with few scares.

Miller was eventually bowled for 37, with 25 still needed to win but that was the only blip as Thomson and Kev Smith saw the team home to finish on 24 and 18 respectively.

For the second week in a row, the 2s won by 9 wickets and in doing so inflicted only the second defeat of the season on Clacks.

West Lothian collect 20 points and Clacks receive two bonus points.