Stenhousemuir Cricket Club: Season 2018 review

The aim at the start of the season was to consolidate the position in Division 1 after last year’s sixth place and that was more than accomplished.

To finish in third place, only just behind East Kilbride, was a fine effort with ten wins out of 15 matches. Stenny also reached the semi final of the Scottish Challenge Cup only to lose away to Falkland after two long trips to Aberdeen and Dundee.

Stenhousemuir had a very strong bowling attack, regularly bowling sides out but the batting was more inconsistent, relying heavily on pro Rushdie Jappie who scored 907 runs in all competitions.

The next highest contribution came from overseas player Talor Scott who scored just under 400 runs with skipper Ross Jones notching up 323. There were useful contributions from Zeb Alamgir and young Callum Grant who passed 150 runs for the season.

The bowling was a different matter. Again, Rushdie Jappie dominated with 52 wickets but there was plenty of support with Sohail Thakur, Callum Grant and Zeb Alamgir, in his first season at the club, all taking more than 20 wickets. Gary Halcrow took 15 wickets after coming back into the side midway through the season.

What made a huge difference was the performance of Talor Scott behind the stumps. He had the remarkable total of 31 victims, 17 caught and 14 stumped, greatly supporting Callum Grant and Rushdie Jappie in particular.

The second side also improved on last season finishing in sixth place in Division 3. Much of the credit must go to skipper Chris Dyer, better known as Scoony. He managed to ensure he had a side on the field every Saturday, never missed a game and took 17 wickets and scored a total of 76 runs.

Connon Mclaren was easily top scorer with 216 runs. Peter Moses, Peter Quinn, Lucas Laing and Sankalp Chougule all made useful contributions with the bat with Chougule, Alan Reed, Lewis Ollier and Colin Douglas backing up the skipper with the ball.

The real plus for the season was the performance of the youngsters. Callum Grant made his debut for Scotland under 17s and he and Sohail Thakur established themselves as regular first team players.

In the second side Connon McLaren was top scorer and Lucas Laing made useful runs in both first and second sides and Lewis Ollier had some fine performances with the ball.

Finally mention must be made of scorers Joe Chalmers for the firsts and Jack Leadbetter for the seconds. Joe introduced the club to digital scoring and was a great help in preparing these reports during the season.