Key players missing again

Roger Graham 1551 - 1551 • Published 5 Jun 2009 14:00

GREENOCK are away to league leaders West of Scotland tomorrow, again minus international trio Craig Wright, Dewald Nel and Richie Berrington.

These three line up for Scotland against New Zealand and South Africa this weekend in the ICC World T20 Championships at the Oval.

It is a big chunk out of the Glenpark 1st XI, the trio being all-rounders at club level, and there is no doubt it will be a stiff task at Hamilton Crescent.

The campaign so far has produced two defeats and one win, the latter against Ayr at Glenpark last Saturday. Victory was welcome, but the match highlighted weaknesses in the Greenock squad.

Ayr are a side who have been in decline and arrived at Glenpark on the back of four successive league defeats. That they pushed Greenock as far as they did says as much about the hosts" often wayward bowling as it did about their own resolve.

Both clubs are suffering from the awful decline of school sport. It has been covered in these columns over the years, but we are a nation in which sportsmen and women succeed, when they do, despite the system rather than because of it. Compare ourselves with real sporting countries.

Not only does sport suffer as a consequence of lack of activity in state schools - with some notable exceptions - but we are storing up all sorts of problems with regard to the general health of our country, not to mention social consequences.

Greenock Cricket Club"s saving grace has been the resources ploughed in by Jimmy Lepick which have enabled Australian Tony Judd to come to Glenpark as a coach and, through him, encouraged top players to come to Greenock. Without that contribution it is doubtful if Greenock would be playing in the national leagues at all.

Politicians have a lack of foresight when it comes to sport. They make token gestures but there is no long term view; no serious, coherent, radical change as far as resources, facilities and coaching are concerned. Perhaps the public is equally to blame for an apparent indifference. Where is the clamour to make sport a core subject at school?

Now we are in a situation in which the clubs are apparently on the verge of voting for a return to regionalised cricket.

The trouble with that is that much has changed in the years since the inception of the national leagues, and not for the better at school level. Were Greenock to return to the old Western Union, they would have to accept that their decline would begin almost immediately.

The steady influx of talented players from Greenock Academy has dried up as surely as some arid creek in the Oz outback. The school"s attitude to previous invites to use Glenpark has always met with a negative response.

In a regional set-up the top clubs would inevitably be situated in Edinburgh and Glasgow and Greenock"s days of being one of Scotland"s best teams would be numbered.

The news broken in this paper on Monday of a possible breakaway league, comprising no more than eight or nine clubs, committed to finding a way to play top strength league cricket, while fitting games around national requirements, is an attempt to rationalise the current situation. Greenock"s Jimmy Lepick is one of the prime movers behind the possible split.

If it means that postponed games can be played, if it means club teams can be at full strength, then so much the better.

One of the new boys at Glenpark who has shone is Willie Rowan. He looks a real prospect, and he batted beautifully alongside pro Cameron Borgas, building on the solid platform established by openers Keenan Bowers and Shailesh Prabhu. Bowers too has obvious talent and these two are young men upon whom the club can build for the future.

Borgas it was, however, who grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck. Not only did he hit a sparkling unbeaten 88, but his frugal stint with the ball proved vital, and he captained the team well in often difficult circumstances.

On Sunday Greenock are then at home to Scotland U-19s to complete a league double-header, again minus the international trio.

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This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 05 Jun 09

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