By Craig Black

The County players managed to drag themselves out of bed and trudge down to the Arns on Saturday, much to their surprise as the abysmal weeks weather had all but laid the chances of getting a game to rest. However, the drainage system had been grafting through the evening and the players were greeted with a damp, but playable artificial wicket. Fellow league leaders Haddington were the opponents and after a slight delay play began with Clackmannan being asked to field after losing the toss.

The new cherry was passed to Rizwan Ashraf and Matty Booth and both continued from where they left off the week before, bowling with splendid control of line, length and swing. Booth was the first to draw blood for the Cougars when, after having a caught behind appeal denied a couple balls earlier, he tempted the opener Watkins into a hoick across the line and Ash Rasul comfortably caught the resulting high ball at midwicket. Hiley joined Prenter at the wicket and the pair immediately knuckled down and attempted to inch their way out of the corner they found themselves in. Tight bowling and sharp ground fielding meant that the scoreboard was ticking over at a sedate pace. The next breakthrough was made by newly recruited Neil Ramsay when his pin point accuracy induced a false shot from classy Hiley (31) and knocked back his off stump to leave the visitors on 64 for 2 after 24 overs. Black struck a few overs later with a carbon copy of Ramsay’s wicket to dismiss Talbot for 6. Cuickshank joined the defensive Prenter and the pair immediately looked to boost the slow run rate but some quick thinking by Gordon Oliver at midwicket resulted in the former being run out. Oliver covered several yards to his left before blasting the ball with his foot straight to Jhangir standing behind the stumps to leave the batsman several yards short. With the score sitting at 102 for 4 after 36 overs the big breakthrough came when Jhangir was rewarded for his beautiful spell of bowling by having Prenter caught at cover by James Couper for 33. From this point on the Cougars really did show why they are sitting proudly at the top of division 4 as several more wickets fell quickly and cheaply to leave Clackmannan in a formidable position at 144 for 8 after 48 overs. Unfortunately the weather Gods had different ideas and the consistent heavy drizzle forced both teams to the changing rooms, from which the players didn’t emerge.

Although not as satisfying as a deserved victory, the lack of a result does not affect Clackmannan’s battle for promotion and keeps them atop of division 4 for the 7th consecutive week.