History for Meigle as they defeat the champions to claim historic first-ever Eastern Premier win

Peter CJ Drummond, vice president of Meigle Cricket Club who made a bit of cricketing history with their defeat of Arbroath. Picture: John Devlin

The 2013 champions travelled to Victory Park as firm favourites to recover from their opening day defeat by Forfarshire. Instead, it was the league’s newcomers who demonstrated “bouncebackability,” following up their heavy loss at Stoneywood-Dyce with a convincing 61-run triumph.

Such an outcome looked unlikely when Meigle were dismissed for a modest 141, skipper Charles Clark top-scoring with 42 after Rasheed had got them off to a bright start with 38.

However, Rasheed’s real heroics were yet to come as he ripped through Arbroath’s top order with 6-28, reducing the visitors to 53-6. There was no way back for the Lochlands side as Murray Scott and Clark got in on the wicket-taking act.

Carlton's Hugo Southwell scored 25 not out to steady the ship.

Elsewhere, in a remarkable match at People’s Park, Forfarshire were forced to showed resilience of champions to take the spoils against Stoneywood-Dyce.

Stoneywood, staring at humiliation when they lost their first three batsmen without a run on the board, recovered through a belligerent knock from Lennard Bester who kept the champions at bay and took his team to three figures.

Bester served notice of his counter-attacking intentions with back-to-back sixes, over deep-mid-wicket and long-on in an over that yielded 18 runs.

The South African continued to frustrate the visitors to remain unbeaten on 84 before Shire skipper Scott Cameron returned to the attack to claim the final wicket – his fourth – with the total on 122.

Instead of a canter to victory, the Forthill men found themselves in genuine danger when they slumped to 54-6, the excellent Jamie King taking the first three wickets.

However, the champions found a pair of heroes in Jack Hogarth and Lewis James who calmly staged an unbroken stand of 69 to see their side to victory.

At Myreside the right-arm medium pace of Omar Ahmad and Chayank Gosain’s left-arm spin provided a potent combination for Carlton to rout derby rivals Watsonians.

Having opted to bat, the hosts were soon reduced to 8-2 and Ahmad struck again to remove the dangerous Oli Hairs thanks to an outstanding catch from Arun Pillai. It sparked a remarkable collapse which saw Sonians lose their final eight wickets for 20 runs with Ahmad and Gosain having five victims each.

The Carlton chase was not all plain sailing, though, the Grange Loan side wobbling on 2-2 and 26-3 before Tom Simpson (23no) and Hugo Southwell (25no), inset, steered them to victory.

The precocity of youth was again to the fore as Grange cruised to their second consecutive win. While all-rounder Jack Jarvis was the hero as they beat Carlton seven days earlier, another pair of talented teens guided them to with a 200-run trouncing of RH Corstorphine at East Barnton. Tom Mackintosh, rising through the ranks at Durham CCC, showed his class with the bat, scoring a composed unbeaten 84 as Grange posted 267-6, while Charlie Peet hit 53no.

Peet, like Mackintosh a Scotland U19 player, then took the new ball and, with his left-arm spin, claimed the first four wickets as Corstorphine collapsed to 20-4 and were all out for 67.

Heriot’s recovered from last week’s defeat to RHC to get the better of Stewarts Melville by 12 runs at Goldenacre.