Glens Shock Champions as Cricket Season Begins
A huge result for Glens as Carlton are defeated at Gilvenbank.
The dry April weather has lent itself well to preparing cricket pitches and the Gilvenbank Park in Glenrothes was in cracking shape ahead of the visit of Scottish National Champions Carlton CC from Edinburgh for the Premier League opener. There have been big changes in the Glens 1st XI with prolific batsman Chris Greaves opting to switch to Forfarshire and a couple of others deciding to step down a league at other clubs.
The national cricket media seems to be agreed though that the Glens have recruited well, even of the saga of Indian World Cup winner Sreesanth is still ongoing the arrival of Scotland international all-rounder Safyaan Sreesanth, South African pair Aidan Justus and Chris Mohale plus Aamir Shahzad and Yasar Arfat from Stenhousemuir CC.
Electing to bat first, Glenrothes made the most of their decision as openers Fred Culley and Aidan Justus claimed the initiative with a brilliant stand of 167. Culley was eventually out for 91 as a deserved century beckoned while Justus fell for 46 shortly after. Their departures saw the hosts slump to 249-9 with the only other notable contributions from Ben Wilkinson with 30 and Jamie Penman with 15 not out.
The Glens would certainly have taken 249 if given it at the start and in the end proved enough as Carlton’s inexperienced batting line-up, fell short. The pick of Glens bowlers were newcomers Shahzad with 4/42 and Mohale with a fine spell of spin bowling and figures of 3/25. Sharif was unable to bowl under the advice of Cricket Scotland due to a recent ankle injury but he’ll be hoping to be running in next Saturday as the Glens make the short visit to his old club Falkland for the first Fife Debry of the season.
