Dumfries Cricket Club started their 2023 summer season with a pre-league friendly at home at Nunholm against Meigle with both sides achieving a good run out and Tommy McGrath awarded the Anderson Kilts Player of the Match for Dumfries for his all-round performance.
The visitors, Meigle, promoted back into the East Premier League, put Your Move Dumfries into bat first. Robert McBride looked assured for his first innings of the season and he and keeper Fergus Bainbridge ushered the score up towards forty. Bainbridge was removed lbw and the most productive partnership, with fifty runs added, followed with Tommy McGrath joining McBride.
However, the introduction of spin stalled progress and McBride was also lbw for 27 and, with the score past the hundred, McGrath followed, bowled, for the top score of 30. Spinners Scott and Saeed, each with three wickets, whittled away at the batting line-up and it required another fifty run ninth wicket partnership between Vaughn Staples and Alan Davidson, with 25 not out, for a defendable Dumfries total of 170 for 8.
Alan Davidson achieved the best possible start to the season with a wicket caught first ball and James Hobman backed him with a wicket bowled for 6 for 2. However overseas Sri Lankan Gayashan looked the class batsman on the day and Dumfries, although not the spectators, were glad to see him well caught by McGrath in the deep off Staples for 34. The same combination repeated that for 54 for 4. However, from there Harvey and in particular Rasheed got motoring finding the boundary in the process. Harvey scored 23, caught and bowled McGrath, but Rasheed was there at the end, after a destructive 77 not out, for a five wicket win.
Meigle were pleased with the run out and the effort of the Nunholm ground staff to provide a good surface for an early season outing. The Dumfries side was an encouragingly youthful one with an average age of under twenty three. The West Premier League matches start at Nunholm with a home match against Greenock on Saturday the 29th April.
If interested in participating in some junior, women’s, senior cricket during this summer Dumfries Cricket Club can be contacted on [email protected].
Your Move Dumfries 170/8 (40 overs)
T McGrath 30, R McBride 27, A Davidson 25no
S Saeed 3/17, M Scott 3/24, S Ejaz 2/26
Meigle 174/5 (29.2 overs)
Z Rasheed 77no, R Gayashan 34, M Harvey 23
V Staples 2/46, A Davidson 1/11, J Hobman 1/24, T McGrath 1/20
Anderson Kilts Dumfries Player of the Match: T McGrath
—
Photo: Tommy McGrath top scored for Dumfries
