Title chase too close to call as leading pair emerge victorious

At Myreside Watsonians went top after thumping bottom side Greenock in less than two and a half hours while Grange were defeating McCrea FS West via the Duckworth/Lewis method.

Stuart Chalmers with five wickets was the main man for Watsonians as they bowled Greenock out for a meagre 59. The Scotland under-19 skipper Paddy Sadler had started things off by dismissing Willie Rowan for a duck with just the third ball. Mike Legget then got Shailesh Prabhu out in the second over and although Andy Hislop and Chris Bellwood then took the visitors up to 30 more wickets soon began to tumble.

Chalmers took two wickets in two balls and then had Alex Baum caught after he skied one. Captain Steve Paige took another wicket and a silly run-out left Greenock on 43-7.

In the 16th over Chalmers, now the leading wicket taker in the top flight with 28, took two more in two balls before Paige finished things off three overs later.

In reply Watsonians lost James Easton for 10, but Ryan Flannigan (32 not out) and Tim Weston (15 not out) saw them home by nine wickets.

Second-placed Grange had a slightly tougher afternoon at Hamilton Crescent, a superb 96 from Stuart Moffat helping them to 207-6 from 44 overs in a rain affected match.

Top four batsmen Oli Hairs, Sanjay Patel, Ian Worth and Mike Powell all got starts, but none could score over 20 and it was left to Moffat to provide the big individual score. He fell to spinner Muhammad Kashif four runs short of a century, but with Simon Smith and Giles Holmes chipping in with 16 and 12 respectively it took Grange up over 200.

After several rain showers McCrea FS West needed to score 197 in 39 overs and they started well with Jatinder Singh and Ian Young making 30 and 35. However, not enough of their other batsmen were in form and they fell 30 runs short on D/L. Roy Adams and Andy Wilson both took two wickets for Grange.

Dunfermline Knights kept their title hopes alive and in the process dented Carlton's chances of finishing top with a victory over the Edinburgh side at McKane Park. South African Alistair Gray now has 865 runs in the league in 2010 after his 128 provided the backbone of the hosts 257-6. Amir Shahzad also made 48 not out.

In reply Carlton got off to a poor start and never recovered. Cedric English fell for one to leave them on 7-1 and captain Steve Gilmour and Blake Dean fell in quick succession to make it 32-3.

In the end they were all out for 117 despite some defiant batting late on from Nathan Pietsch and Omar Ahmad who made 30 and 24 respectively. Safyaan Sharif's fine season continued with three wickets.

Michael Parlane hit 84 not out as Aberdeenshire defeated Forfarshire at Mannofield. The Kiwi's runs helped the hosts make 177-9 from 45 overs, teenager Aman Bailwal taking 4-25 for the Broughty Ferry outfit.

After rain, Forfarshire needed 140 from 30 overs, but some superb bowling from Shaun Coetzer who took four wickets meant that they were all out for 123.

Uddingston were successful in their bid to chase down a Duckworth/Lewis total of 153 with four of the 36 overs remaining to defeat Clydesdale.

Amir Gul was the star for the hosts, scoring 49 not out to steer them home.