By Craig Black

On Saturday Clackmannan 1st XI travelled through to Duloch Park in Dunfermline to take on Kismet in a much-awaited top of the league battle. The last 2 games between the teams have been cancelled due to fine Scottish weather, and on arrival it seemed like this could be the case once more as the heavens looked set to burst. After the pre-match preparation of sweeping the pitch we were ready to go, having lost the toss and been put in to bat on the artificial wicket.
 With skipper Graeme Anderson missing in action, it was left to Ken Hutchison to open the innings with our adopted Australian Geoff Logan. Unfortunately we didn’t get off to the best of starts as Loges smashed one straight into the grateful wicketkeepers gloves without troubling the scoreboard and Hutchy followed him to the dressing room shortly afterwards, as one nipped back through the gate to dislodge the bails. At this stage Clackmannan were sitting precariously on 17 for 2 with stand in captain Craig Black and Ash Rasul at the crease. With the outfield resembling the Florida everglades, boundaries were hard to come by, but the pair looked comfortable as they guided the ball into the gaps to pick up the 1’s and 2’s. The scoreboard started to gain a bit of momentum in Clackmannan’s favour until Black feathered one through to the wicky for a disappointing 34. From here on out wickets fell regularly as batsmen got themselves in, then promptly got themselves out. Ash departed for a hard fought 14, as did Tippu Sultan, whilst Keith Hefer was bowled for 11 by an absolute Jaffer, that would have demolished the stumps of most batsmen. Kismet’s pace attack didn’t take long to finish off the tail with the only resistance coming from Rizwan Ashraf who put on a valiant 18 not out. Clackmannan finished off on 115 all out from 35 overs, a disappointing performance to say the least.
 Kismet have probably the strongest batting line up in the league. With only 115 to defend, Clackmannan knew that it would take something close to a miracle to walk away with a win. Craig Black and Riswan Ashraf opened the attack and didn’t have much success against the experienced Kismet opening pair until the 11th over when Rizwan managed to dismiss both of them as they edged the ball through to Logan behind the stumps. A change in bowling saw Tippu Sultan brought on and he bowled a tidy first over. Rizwan continued his display of line and length bowling from the other end and was immediately rewarded as he managed to pick up his third Kismet scalp whilst Logan picked up his third catch. Cries of “Shabash, shabash” were ringing out around the ground as Riz steamed in and two balls later Rizwan racked up his forth wicket of the innings. No prizes for guessing who took the catch, as the Australian wicky gladly pouched his fourth. With our tails in the air and Kismet 4 down for 45, we were starting to wonder if that earlier mentioned miracle was about to take place. Rizwan finished off his 10 overs with fantastic figures of 4 for 36 and it was left to Black and Sultan to carry on from where he left off. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case as both bowlers struggled to find their usual accuracy and Kismet were more than happy to cash in on this, dispatching any bad ball to the ropes. It didn’t take long for Kismet to chase down the Clackmannan total as they reached 116 in the 25th over for the loss of 4, winning the game by 6 wickets.
 A dejected team headed off the field knowing that another 50 odd runs or someone to support Rizwans bowling and the outcome could have been different, but that’s the beauty of hindsight.