EAST KILBRIDE OFF TO A TERRIBLE START
On 29 April 2017 East Kilbride played their first league game of the cricket season. The game was against defending league champions, Clydesdale at Titwood in Glasgow.

Even in East Kilbride’s wildest dreams, could they not possibly have imagined that the game would be played so poorly. Poor however is a heavy understatement.

Clydesdale won the toss and their captain, Con de Lange a current Scottish international and former first-class player in South Africa( Cape Cobras and Eagles) and England ( Northants), elected to bat first.

The ability or rather the lack of consistent good balls was evident as Clydesdale opening batsmen, Mo Awais(84 of 64 balls), climbed into any ball that was slightly offline and there was an abundance of bad deliveries! It must just be added that the outfield was wet and slippery when the game started, as many of the fielders slipped when they chased after balls. Thus because of the wet outfield the cricket ball got wet which might have contributed to the poor bowling. In fact EK can regard themselves unlucky that the game was not delayed longer for the outfield to dry out a bit.

The fast start that Awais created for Clydesdale set up their entire innings and allowed their incoming batsmen to play with freedom or take their time before launching an all out attack.

Thus players like Richie Berrington, who is also a current Scottish international player, demolished the bowling attack of EK. Berrington played a delightful innings an finished on an unbeaten 139 of 98 balls. K Farid also played a handy 32 of 32 balls to share a 113 run partnership with Berrington.

Although all of the above mentioned players would not have nearly scored the same amount of runs if EK bowled half decent. It was quite evident that there was no plan from the bowlers and that they just ran in to bowl. There was way to many balls bowled on both sides of the wicket and therefore no pressure was put on the batsmen. However you still have to score of the bad balls and no credit can be taken away from the Clydesdale batsmen on that behalf. Moneeb Iqbal was EK’s best bowler with returning figures of 3-65. Clydesdale posted a massive 339-6 in their allotted 50 overs.

Chasing down a massive target is never an easy job and it was made worse when you take into consideration that the wicket was not nearly as good as the score line would suggest. As it is the start of the season and the wickets are generally slow and provide plenty of support for the bowlers. Provided they bowl in the correct areas!

Clydesdale showed EK how to bowl and humbled the visitors for a modest 140 runs all out. With Stewart Kampman top scoring for EK with 20 runs. Thus Clydesdale recorded a thumping 199 run victory of the men from East Kilbride.

What made the day even worse for EK is that if you turn back the clock exactly a year ago. EK also lost badly, although not as badly, to the exact same opponents on the exact same field. After that match EK lost their next 2 games as well and evidently lost the title to Clydesdale last year. If EK want to prevent a similar outcome they are going to have to improve drastically!
The week that is to be is a very important one for EK. As their are many issues that has to be addressed before they take on Greenock on Saturday and Ferguslie on Sunday. Otherwise it might be a very long season for EK indeed!