Cricket: Killie suffer from dropped catches

Jul 18 2008 by Clair Fullarton, Kilmarnock Standard

THE unseasonal weather this summer continued this week as Kilmarnock’s 1st XI match with Active Life Club of Paisley was called off on the Friday afternoon as their Hamilton Palace ground was not going to be fit for play.

This turned the attention to the 2nd XI (Kirkstyle) who were at home to Langloan from Drumpellier. Two late call offs caused some disruption, but with the cancellation of the 1st XI game there were plenty of players to pick from.

First XI vice captain Alistair Smith and wicket keeper David Horne stepped into the breach and hopes were high.

On winning the toss, captain David Nimbley sent Langloan in on a soft green wicket. Nimbley opened the bowling himself with youngster Mujahid Azeem.

Both bowlers kept the run-rate down with some tight bowling, but it was Nimbley who provided a wonderful spell of bowling, conceding just 13 runs from his 15 overs and being very unlucky not to pick up more than one wicket.

Although Nimbley was the pick of the bowlers, it was Amir Ghanghro who ended with the best figures as he picked up four wickets from his seven overs.

Kilmarnock bowled very well but sloppy catching allowed Langloan to reach 120 when they should probably been kept to below 100.

The pivotal drop as far as Kilmarnock were concerned was of Aziz who plundered a quick-fire 37 to give his side a slightly more respectable total.

Although Kilmarnock allowed their guests slightly more runs than they would have hoped for, it was certainly a very gettable total on a wicket that was not doing very much.

Kilmarnock started their innings badly as Alun Johnstone was dismissed for one, but two comfortable partnerships between Zeeshand Saeed (19) and Smith and then Smith and Horne gave them a glimmer of hope.

But when Smith and Horne fell in quick succession to the impressive Aziz, for 13 and 21 respectively Kilmarnock capitulated from 64 for 2 to 90 all out.

There were some dreadful shots from several batsmen with the pretty inauspicious spinner Allison taking six wickets for just 14 runs from his 9.4 overs.

This was another poor result for the 2nd XI and their recent performances have been very worrying, but there is always next week when Kilmarnock host Home Park.

Kilmarnock under-18s managed to dodge the showers for long enough to get a match in on Monday night at West of Scotland.

West made good use of the excellent batting conditions to plunder the bowling to all parts of the ground scoring a mammoth 147 off of their 20 overs.

It was always going to be a hard task to chase down and some tight bowling from West made the chase even harder.

Richard Marshman (25) found a wee bit of form but there was no support and only some late hitting from Chris Marshman (15) and Muhammed Ali (21) boosted the total up over 100, but the final total of 103 saw them fall 44 runs short.