Cricket: EK lose their 100 per cent record at Ferguslie

Jun 13 2012 by Paul Thomson, East Kilbride News

EAST Kilbride Cricket Club didn’t fire on an important day as they narrowly lost the top-of-the-table clash with Ferguslie by two wickets.

After starting the season with a 100 per cent record spanning eight matches, the run finally came to an end on Saturday.

On a green wicket which was hard underneath, EKCC lost the toss and were asked to bat first.

EK didn’t get off to a good start and kept on losing wickets at regular intervals, but captain Umair Saeed held one end until the 26th over and kept on losing partners.

Where it was important to accelerate, he lost his wicket and then the next three batsman got good starts but couldn’t convert their 20s into any formidable scores.

In the end Aftab Talpur batted well to get EKCC to a defendable score of 150 with his 33 not out.

Rain then intervened and the score was reduced to 147 with the Duckworth–Lewis (D/L) method, a mathematical formula designed to calculate the target score for the team batting second.

If East Kilbride were to win this game they would have to come out with all guns blazing and take plenty of wickets... and they got off to a good start with some cheap openers that brought the Ferguslie professional into the game.

He hit a couple of boundaries and, in a hurry to finish the game, skied one which was caught by Tom Richards after bowling from Ross Lyons.

At that interval EK thought they had a slender chance to sneak in but the Ferguslie batsman were hitting boundaries at will.

They got a good partnership for 40 odd then Shahid Mahmood was brought on.

He started getting wickets, of which two were caught at leg on by Richards and Umair Khan.

Ferguslie were eight down and needing 15-odd runs to get through and when Mahmood and Khan bowled out from both ends it gave Ferguslie victory by two wickets.

Next week EK play Weirs at Torrance House.