By Peter Hempsey

Greenock 145 for 6 wickets from 24.1 overs (25 points)

Dumfries 143 for 4 wickets from 30 overs (3 points)

GREENOCK kept their Western Premiership One season alive with an important win over Dumfries at Glenpark on Saturday.

Home team captain Greg McDougall put the visitors in to bat after the coin toss, and it proved to be a good omen for the Glenpark side.

Dumfries began their innings with top scoring batsman Adam Malik and occasional top order batsman Sibo Sithole as their opening pair.

Greenock began with the experienced Jonathan Hempsey partnering Gregor Chambers as opening bowlers.

The first two overs provided the visitors with an encouraging start, with ten runs recorded. But early in the third, Malik and Sithole got into a mix-up and Malik was run out thanks to quick-thinking from Greg McDougall and Lukas Fischer-Keogh behind the stumps.

The removal of Malik so early in the innings provided Greenock with a psychological boost, however, the visitors settled and despite tight bowling from Hempsey and Chambers and moved on to 37 after the eleven overs without further loss.

However, Sithole and South African overseas amateur Jordan Maritz were only scoring at a rate of less than four runs per over and with the match reduced to 30 overs per side the pair needed to become more expansive with their shot-making.

Greenock made the change to slower, spin bowling to entice the batsmen into hitting out. Rahul Dalal and newly arrived Nikhil Kadyan were introduced into the bowling attack and it soon paid off.

Towards the end of the 14th over the Dumfries score had crept along to 52.

With the pressure on the batsmen, Sithole, who had only scored 13 runs from 41 balls, attempted to hit Dalal to the boundary only to be bowled out.

The dismissal brought Aussie Scott Beveridge to the middle to join South African Maritz and the southern hemisphere pair raised the run rate to slightly above five runs per over.

But as the end of the 22nd over approached, Maritz was dismissed when he was bowled by Tom Polkinghorne for 40.

The visitors’ score at the end of twenty two overs was 94 and so with just eight overs remaining an acceleration in run-scoring was needed to set Greenock a challenging total.

But few boundaries were made until the 27th over when a late desperate attempt to get quick runs resulted Beveridge smashing five boundaries before being bowled by Polkinghorne for 59 runs from 49 balls.

Following Beveridge’s removal only a further five runs were added to the visitors’ score, taking them to 143..

In a good all round bowling and fielding performance from Greenock, Tom Polkinghorne finished as the most successful bowler with two wickets for 23 runs from four overs bowled.

The Greenock innings opened with Lukas Fischer-Keogh and Shailesh Prabhu and the pair made a confident start.

Fischer-Keogh hit the visitors’ opening pace bowler James Hobman for two boundaries in the first over and then Prabhu joined in with a boundary from Alan Davidson’s first over.

However, the good start was short-lived as Hobman bowled Fischer-Keogh for eight runs with the third ball of his second over.

Gregor Chambers joined Prabhu and the pair showed that Greenock’s tactic was to continue to attack and score quickly.

But with 32 runs on the scoreboard Dumfries made a double wicket breakthrough, dismissing Chambers LBW and then bowling Prabhu.

The two wickets brought together Greenock pro Rahul Dalal and Nikhil Kadyan playing his first game for the club. The pair quickly gelled and their partnership produced 58 runs before Kadyan (12) provided a return catch to Tom McGrath.

A fifth wicket partnership of 28 runs between Dalal and Polkinghorne took Greenock halfway to their target. But then Dumfries struck for a second time with two wickets in two balls to ensure Greenock would not just cruise to their target.

However, there were to be no more successes for Dumfries as Dalal continued to show his class as a batsman. He stroked his way to 74 not out from just 54 balls and was supported for the final act by Aryan Sanghera.

The winning runs were scored with the first ball of the 25th over and appropriately it was a boundary from Dalal which brought the victory.

So Greenock gained the win which was so important and now have eight games remaining to find some further wins to try and retain their Premiership One position.

Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U