The Roon’d-up: West reach the summit on nailbiting weekend
The Roon’d-Up is our regular summary of events on the field at West over the 2025 season. We’ll cover all the results as well as outstanding and notable performances throughout the season to keep you up to date on the latest goings on at Hamilton Crescent.
Three stunning Saturday games and West’s women make cup progress.
West won by 7 wickets chasing a reduced DLS total at title rivals Renfrew. Having won the toss and elected to bowl in cloudy conditions, the visitors started brightly with Dave McNulty removing opener Inderjit Dulai without scoring. Himanshu Sharma showed some resistance, before being run out for 40, but Renfrew went on to lose regular wickets throughout their innings to reach just 128 all out from 44.4 overs. McNulty led from the front with 4-26, with support from captain James Fennah who took 2 for just 14 runs off 9 overs. West’s response was interrupted by rain, but loss of early wickets did not deter them in reaching a reduced target of 108 with the loss of 3 wickets. Opener Joe Carrasco top scored with an unbeaten 54 from 99 balls, supported by Larvet Masunda who reached 36. The result means that West leapfrog Renfrew into 1st place, with 5 games remaining.
Meanwhile there was another rain affected thriller at Hamilton Crescent where the Partick XI lost out by just 9 runs to Western Championship One leaders Whitehaugh. Batting first after winning the toss, Kelburne’s 2s made a strong start in difficult conditions with Andrew Miller scoring 63 from 120 balls. Partick’s bowlers, however, made a strong comeback, ripping through the lower order to reduce Whitehaugh to 183 all out, having been 153-3 at one stage. Oscar Fry took 3-41 and there were 2 wickets a piece for quicks Sarwar Mohammad and Santhosh Kadavath and spinner Zeyd Clayburn. In reply, Partick struggled to 45-5, before rain interrupted their response. DLS calculations were not in their favour as the target was reduced by 3 runs despite the loss of 7 overs. Despite this, stand in captain Chris Ross scored 45 off 58 balls but lost his wicket with West’s second eleven 49 runs short of their target. Number 10 Fry joined Athsham Hussain at the crease and the pair put together a quite brilliant 40 run partnership to take them into the last two overs requiring eleven runs, before Fry was bowled by Miller and Kadvath run out to leave Partick just short.
Hamilton Crescent’s game with Nunholm also went down the wire as they lost by 9 runs in Stirling. Despite early wickets for Naweed Zazai and Swami Ananthanarayanan, man of the match Max Corbett-Byers scored a stunning century for the visitors. But tight bowling from Matt Farr (who took 3-25) and spinners Saaid Sufi and Mammon Hussain reduced Nunholm to 200 all out. In reply, Hamilton Crescent made a strong start, reaching 60 without loss as openers Rehan Mirza Ahmed (31) and George Clarke (22) looked to make early progress. But it was a familiar story for our 3s as middle order wickets began to fall and the hosts were 96-6 at one stage. An inspired 7th wicket stand between James Scott (43) and Ananthanarayanan began to build hope, with the latter taking on Nunholm’s bowlers until the final overs including two huge sixes. In the end, however, West’s 3rd side fell agonisingly close of their target.
On Sunday, West’s womens side convincingly defeated Murrayfield DAFS by 44 runs. Having elected to bat first, West reached 122/6 off their 20 overs. Jenna Stanton scored a solid 29* off 44 balls to anchor the innings with opener Maryam Faisal (17), Abbey Gore (16) and Olivia McGhee (15) also making contributions with the bat. Murrayfield lost early wickets in reply and only number 3 bat Abi Power provided any resistance scoring 25. It was an excellent all round bowling display for West with 6 players taking wickets and runs proving hard to come by. West progress to the semi finals of the Beyond Boundaries Women’s T20 Cup looking to repeat their heroics of 2023 when they lifted the trophy.
On Tuesday, West’s Midweek XI face Uddingston in a league match before Partick take on Titwood away on Wednesday evening in the semi final of the Western Cup, a 6pm start.
