Highland Cricket Club tasked with keeping pace with leaders at top of Senior League
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HIGHLAND cricket captain Rob Nixon has set his side the challenge of keeping up with the Senior League’s early pace-setters.
Nixon’s team won impressively at Buckie last weekend and now face Ross County at Fraser Park tomorrow.
Victory for Northern Counties and a walk-over for Forres St Lawrence put them at the top of the table.
But top displays from Jon Wolton and Jon Crabtree against Buckie gives Nixon optimism for the weekend.
“It’s a good standard to set and we just need to keep it up now,” said Nixon. “We’re back on a grass wicket this week, after playing on an artificial one at Buckie, so the ball will do a bit more.
“I couldn’t ask for any more, particularly from Dave and Jon. Dave said he’d never made a 50 at Buckie, so it’s a nice way for him to start the season.
Nixon will be without Crabtree, wicketkeeper Steven Laidler and talented bowler Irtaza Hussain against County. However, Adnan Shah could return and Varun Natarajan will keep wicket.
“It would be massive to start with two wins,” added Nixon. “Forres got 20 points without playing and Counties had a good win, so we need to keep pace.”
Neighbours Counties started the season in impressive form, thrashing champions Fochabers by 100 runs.
Tomorrow they welcome Forres, another title contender, to the Northern Meeting Park.
“We’re going to have to face them as some point so we’re best to get them out the way with first,” said captain Dave Dugdale. “If we get a result this Saturday then we can obviously start dreaming a little but it’s going to be a lot more difficult.
“You could see Fochabers were struggling for players, compared to the team they had last season. But it was good to get a win like that going into this week.”
Counties welcome back Shaun Thomas and Cameron Leckie tomorrow.
Nuwan Eshwara, who scored 49 and took five-for-13 last weekend, is tipped for a big season by Dugdale.
“He should be up there at the end of every season – sometimes he doesn’t get what he deserves,” he said. “I’m hoping a few boys, like Shaun Thomas, Matty Latimer and Richard Smith, can contribute with bat and ball this season.”
Nairn County tasted defeat a week ago at home to Elgin and skipper Iain Macleod is determined to see a reaction away at Huntly tomorrow.
“We don’t go there thinking it’s going to be an easy game,” he said. “They’ll have more pace in their attack than Elgin, which took us by surprise last week.”
Macleod expects to name an unchanged side for the trip to Castle Park.
“Our fielding let us down against Elgin – we didn’t take chances they gave us,” added Macleod. “A few guys scored runs but we couldn’t stem the flow of wickets.”
Elsewhere, Elgin host Buckie and Fochabers travel to Fort William.
In the Reserve League on Sunday, Nairn County welcome Northern Counties to the Links and Highland are at home to Ross County.
