Watsonians v Clackmannan CCC

Myreside, Edinburgh

Clackmannan CCC beat Watsonians by five wickets

CLACKS 1st XI took the victory away to Watsonians in their ECSA DIV 1 match at the weekend.

Although thunderstorm and showers were forecast for the day, the both teams completed their games with out any drama.

Watsonians won the toss and decided to bat first. Clacks started their bowling in usual fashion by doing the maximum damage and keeping the run rate low.

The first wicket fell to K Hefer when the score was (0), while on the other end Kagumba kept the opposition strangled.

D Patel was the next bowler to do damage to the Watsonians' inning when he trapped their opening batsman LBW for 19.

However, a good partnership of 66 runs between Ramani and Robertson pushed Clacks on back foot. A change in the tactics worked for Clacks when Kagumba took a flying catch in the gully area of Hefer's bowling and send Robertson back to pavilion for 49 runs.

D Patel, with his swing bowling, saw Ramani edging to A Rasul who took another good catch sending second set batsman to the pavilion.

Score was 98 for four and Clacks looked very comfortable to finish Watsonians' inning early, but late partnership between Davies and Cousine took Watsonians to 193 for eight in 50 overs.

Clacks opened their innings with T Mehboob and K Hefer both showing a solid, skilful intent to build partnership by putting bad balls away and defending the good balls.

T Mehboob was the first County batsman to be judged LBW for 19 with the partnership of 42.

G Anderson joined K Hefer on the field with the aim that this week he is not going to hit straight to the fielders or allowing anyone to run him out.

Both put a good display of batting before Hefer departed for 28 runs. D Patel was the next batsman to join and managed to score only eight runs.

T Kagumba was in next to stable the County inning and scored 25, while on the other end G Anderson probably played the best inning so for this season with his solid defence and calculated attack keeping the scoreboard ticking.

After Kagumba departed, A Rasul was out for one run, this brought A Alamgir to join G Anderson. County still needed 50 runs to win, but both batsmen kept their nerves in control and played a superb inning to take County home with 10 overs still left in the inning.

A superb 50-not out from G Anderson certainly helped Clacks to win.

Next week, the team are hosting Musselburgh at The Arns.

Meanwhile, the 2nd XI beat Gala CC in a 30-over match. Clacks scored 111 runs bating first with 40 runs from N Bryant-nichols and 22 runs from A Arshad – an emerging youngster – who batted very well.

Gala's inning was wrapped up quickly by U Rasul who took four wickets for 12 runs in his six overs spell. Gala CC was all out for 91 runs.

Finally, Alloa XI beat Stirling County by 36 runs at The Arns on Sunday.

Bating first, Alloa scored 143 runs thanks to late partnership between Z Shafique and K Ali, and bowled out Stirling County for 107 runs.