Irvine CC are on the look-out for a coach for season 2023. Please see the advert below for details.

Coach Advert ( Player Coach)

Cricket Scotland and the South Asian Cricket Academy are delighted to announce a new partnership to develop young Asian Cricketers with aspirations of playing international cricket for Scotland. Please see the link below for full details.

Cricket Scotland partnership with South Asian Cricket Academy – Cricket Scotland

In order to achieve the aim of being more open and inclusive the WDCU CMC has agreed that the notes of their meetings would be published. Sensitive or confidential issues will not be included. The meeting notes will be published once they have been approved by the CMC.

Please attached the note from the September meeting.

CMC minute of meeting 20-09-2022

Yesterday, following a one sided final against Heriots FP at Bothwell Castle Policies, M8 Driving Ferguslie were crowned Champions of Scotland.

After losing the toss and being invited to bat M8 Driving Ferguslie accumulated 191 all out in 46.2 overs which included a high class half century (68) for captain Riyaad Henry and a solid 29 from South African Elliot Moses. The Heriots bowling attack proved hard to dominate with fine spells from Alexander with 3 for 38 and Brown with 2 for 25.  At the interval it wasn’t clear who was on top and both sets of supporters knew the answer would come early in the second innings.

And so it was the Paisley faithful that were rewarded as openers, Adil Ghaffar 2 for 17 and Riyaad Henry 2 for 19, blew away the Heriots top order leaving them in big trouble at 17 for 4.  The Heriots batting line up failed to recover and a mid-innings haul of 4 for 20 from Elliot Moses edged the Paisley side to the brink of victory.

This was secured when Haroon Tahir snapped up the final wicket with Heriots reaching 88 in just over 23 overs.

So it was M8 Driving Ferguslie who became the first recipients of the Willie Morton Memorial Trophy, presented to winning captain Riyaad Henry by Willie’s brother Donald.

This brought a fine end to what could arguably be described as M8 Driving Ferguslie’s best ever season.  Well done to all at Meikleriggs for their efforts this year.

Hi everyone, Please see note sent to all clubs today reminding them about next weeks SGM. Invites have been sent to all ‘member’ clubs, Cricket Scotland and sportscotland.

Please Remember that the SGM is now less than a week away. Each club should send me the names of their representative(s) as soon as possible. To date I have only been notified of representatives from 6 clubs. I will only send the Zoom joining details to club representatives who have been notified to me. Also invited to the meeting are representatives from Cricket Scotland and sportscotland.

For your information there have been two nominations received thus far for office bearer posts:

Khizar Ali – Chair- nominated by GHK seconded by West of Scotland
Parvase Majeed – Chair/Treasurer/committee member – nominated by Motherwell and seconded by Langside

Please let me have any further office bearer nominations and club representatives as soon as possible.

Kind regards Iain
WDCU Administrator

And so another season comes to an end and in a similar fashion to the 2021 season. A winner takes all clash between M8 Driving Ferguslie and Prestwick CC at Meikleriggs. The heavy rain on Friday was to play a big part in the outcome and as soon as the rain stopped at 3pm the Ferguslie Grounds team got hard at work preparing the pitch and outfield for the game.

Greeted with fine weather on Saturday morning and drying conditions the game was in no doubt and started at noon as scheduled. On winning the toss Prestwick captain Fraser MacDonald opted to bat in what proved to be a pivotal decision. Prestwick  got off to a slow start on a pitch that was giving the bowlers a little help and wickets fell steadily. Ferguslie captain Riyaad Henry was first to strike removing the dangerous Sachin Chaudery caught behind for nought by David Stafford. This was to be one of three fine catches for Stafford in what  turned out to be a Man of the Match performance.

Next to fall was Inderjit Singh who unlike most other Prestwick batsmen was timing the ball well and his innings of 24 had five fine boundaries. He was dismissed by a fine delivery from Adil Ghaffar who clipped the inside edge and Stafford moved nimbly to the leg side to pick up the chance. Henry then struck again removing young overseas star Matthew Van Dyk who nicked an outswinger again to Stafford who at this stage was standing up at the stumps and he took probably his best catch of the day.  Euan MacBeth was dismissed to a sharp caught and bowled chance by off spinner Haroon Tahir. He struck it well but Tahirs reactions were a match for the strike and MacBeth was gone for a duck. Fellow countryman Donovan Du Randt was next at the crease and his stay was not long. Ferguslies overseas player Elliot Moses, having recently joined the attack, enticed an outside edge from Du Randt which was comfortable pouched by veteran Omar Hussain in the slips.

Prestwick CC then enjoyed their best partnership of the innings with captain Fraser MacDonlad leading from the front. He batted with great patience, no little skill  and maturity and reached a well earned half century eventually finishing on 54 not out. He was ably supported by Mitchell Rao who also displayed great patience notching 24 as the pair added a valuable 59 for the sixth wicket. A late flurry from Gurupreet Singh (14) and Shaz Rafiq ( 6 no) saw Prestwick close their innings on 157 for 6.

The Ferguslie attack performed well all day maintaining great discipline and making it hard for the Prestwick batters to settle. Pick of the hard working bunch were Riyaad Henry with 3 for 38 and Adil Ghaffar with 2 for 28 both off 10 overs.

At the change of innings the large crowd that had assembled in Paisley would probably not be sure if Prestwick ‘ had enough’ runs on the board and whether or  not their team was on top!

For the large crowd from Prestwick it became clear relatively early on that they may be a bit light. A cautious but assertive start from Adil Ghaffar and David Stafford seemed to indicate that the drying out pitch was now a bit easier to bat on. Both players timed the ball nicely and despite some fine early bowling from the Prestwick bowlers the early breakthroughs that were needed did not materailise.

The first and only wicket of the innings fell to Inderjit Singh who enticed a loose shot from Ghaffar (13) which was calmly caught by Mitchell Rao with the score on 26.

That brought Ferguslies South African Elliot Moses to the crease who along with opener David Stafford batted with great calmness and authority to compile a match winning partnership of 132. Stafford and Moses in contrasting batting styles stroked the ball on both sides of the wicket and achieved their target of 158 in the 34th over. Both were to hit many fine boundaries and a couple of fairly hefty sixes in their innings.

The Prestwick bowlers stuck manfully to their task but could just not find a way through and a mixture of seam and spin from both ends proved fruitless.

So after the crushing disappointment of their loss to Clydesdale in 2021 Ferguslie secured the 2022 Western Premier League title in an assured fashion. Great credit must also go to Prestwick for a fine season challenging in all cups and at the top of the league for most of the summer.

Andy Baird of the WDCU presented the cup in front of a raucous Paisley crowd and in doing so thanked all clubs, umpires and supporters for their contribution to a great summer of cricket.

Celebrations went on well into the night with players and supporters from both clubs enjoying the festivities. This is as it should be!

Picture courtesy of Bill Wilson

Congratulations to Loc Hire Stenhousemuir for the completion of a fine league season in 2022. In topping the Division One table they managed the very impressive feat of winning 16 out of their 17 fixtures.

In a stand out season Overseas Player Danie Rossouw accumulated 1099 runs at an average of 78.5 with a top score of 150. Impressive stuff.

Not to be outdone the all round performance of Callum Grant is worthy of equal praise. Callum scored 372 runs at an average of 46.5 and adding the magnificent bowling figures of 54 wickets at an average of 4.94 and a miserly run rate of 1.7 per over. A splendid performance.

Also starring in the bowling stakes was Praveen Pannamaneni capturing 32 wickets at an average of 10.94 and an equally miserly run rate of 2.8.

So the Premier League beckons for season 2023 and with performances like that  Loc Hire Stenhousemuir are well set for a strong challenge.

Well done to all at Stenhousemuir in all capacities for supporting the team in their achievement . It cant be done alone!!!

The final of the McCulloch Cup was held at Titwood on Sunday, 21st July, where  McCrea FS West of Scotland’  secured a tense and exciting victory against Glasgow rivals Clydesdale.  Both teams had battled hard to get to the final which was played in great spirit.

Winning the toss and electing to bat first West could find little impetus and posted 93 for 9 from their 20 overs.  The Colgan brothers made the significant contributions of the innings with Joe scoring 23 and Tom 21.  The Clydesdale bowlers were well on top and along with some excellent fielding looked to have restricted ‘West’ to an under par target. Top quality spin bowling accounted for 8 of the 9 wickets to fall with Daniel Cairns taking 4 for 20 in his 4 overs catching the eye. He was well supported by Zeeshan Bashir with 2 for 15 and Shahan Raja with 2 for 23.

As the Clydesdale reply got under way the vocal West support had become somewhat subdued but that did not last for long. Like West, Clydesdale never really had any momentum in their innings and wickets fell at regular intervals. Only Captain Paddy Barbour made anything of significance with a battling  27. 9 of the 11 Clydesdale batsman failed to get double figures which resulted in them falling 21 runs short of victory to disappoint the substantial home support.

The West attack, spurred on by the ever increasing noise from their support at the fall of every wicket, produced an all round bowling and fielding display of the highest quality to see the cup head to Partick. Tom Spensley with figures of 4 overs 1 maiden 4 for 7 was the stand out but in reality all the West bowlers performed well with captain James Fennah picking up 3 for 18 and John Oliver 2 for 19.

WDCU would like to thank the CSMOA umpires for the day Neil Cauldwell and Andrew Baird who officiated the game in fine fashion.

Finally thanks to Clydesdale CC for hosting the final in great style with the ground in top condition and arranging food and drink for all on a very fine day for cricket in the West!!