Scottish cricket: Spare a thought for the losers

Published on Monday 7 September 2009 22:48

AS WITH so many things in life, there are winners – and losers. Aberdeenshire, Dunfermline and Falkland can begin their preparations for championship-winning dinners, while Greenock and Stoneywood-Dyce may even be raising the odd glass to last-day status-preservation. But amidst the justifiable euphoria and the odd sigh of understandable relief, spare a thought for others on the insidious slide, upon whom those fickle gods of sporting success failed to shine.

Season 2009 has thrown up some high-profile casualties. Where now for Prestwick? The Ayrshire stalwarts, once proud Premiership participants as recently as 2003, and Scottish Cup runners-up by the agonisingly narrow margin of a single run in 1998, are now consigned to the SNCL scrapheap, having fallen through the Division 2 trapdoor.

The Prestwick Oval will be hosting parochial Western Union cricket for the foreseeable future. Nor is there any guarantee of an imminent return. Just ask Edinburgh Accies, Kelburne, Strathmore – and, saddest of all, moribund Perthshire.

And Ferguslie? On the back of two successive bottom places the lately feared Paisley outfit have in a mere 12 months plummeted from the Premiership to the third tier. Premier League runners-up in 2004 and 2007, Ferguslie have now lost 28 of their last 34 SNCL matches.

It all makes grim reading for the denizens of Meikleriggs as the sudden slump shows no imminent signs of bottoming out.

Others may yet join the casualty ranks. Heriot's won't be relishing the prospect of Saturday's postponed play-off against Forfarshire, who fell away disappointingly with two successive defeats at the season's end, but who are eminently capable of destroying the 11th-hour Goldenacre survival bid.

Defeat may have ramifications extending well beyond the loss of higher league status. When you've left the ranks of the bigger boys, recruitment of quality players can become more problematic, while some of your established key performers may be tempted to desert the sinking ship.

Penicuik, Scottish Cup finalists just last year, will also be secretly dreading Saturday's rescheduled Division 1 place play-off against Dumfries, who've been knocking on the promotion door for some time now. No, the season's end is not just about the popping of champagne corks. There's also an ominous groan of closing coffins.

Greenock run for cover

MUCH money has been washing around Greenock for some seasons now, but not enough, it would appear, to provide the requisite covering to enable a weather-ravaged Glenpark to be rendered playable for the last scheduled league match two weeks ago.

Beleaguered Heriot's were thus denied the opportunity to escape the Premier play-off lottery, which victory against Greenock, perilously placed in third-bottom slot, would have meant. The Goldenacre men will, hopefully, play Forfarshire on Saturday.

Curiously this was the only final-round match in either of the top two divisions to fall victim to the weather. Perhaps the rain simply does fall more heavily in Greenock.

Foreign pros top the charts

IT'S the same old story. Check the season's finalised SNCL stats and you'll see that once again the impact made by the non-Scots born and overseas professionals and amateurs is disappointingly telling. Nine of the top ten run scorers in all three divisions are overseas pros – Plant (Uddingston) 971 runs; Gray (Dunfermline) 893; Delmont (Watsonians) 862; van Wyk (West Lothian) 858; Mullick (Ferguslie) 841; Papps (Ayr) 771; Ellis (West) 751; Borgas (Greenock) 707; and Thyssen (Stenhousemuir) 680. The sole Scot present is West's Dougie Lockhart (734), ironically the only batsman listed not to notch a hundred.

The Scots-born bowlers fare marginally better. Hats off to Watsonians' Raj Routray (29), Weir's Siggy Young (26) and Grange's Stuart Chalmers (26), the only three Scots-born bowlers in the top ten. The chart is topped by Aparajit Singh (Falkland) with 37 wickets – a sterling display by the St Andrews University student who once played some First Class cricket back in India. But there is little joy here for the national selectors.