There were once again few surprises in the top division of the Thistle sports Grades on Saturday, as Bon Accord comfortably defeated a 9-man Inverurie side, currently in free fall towards the relegation zone; while an undefeated 69 from Kapil Laghate steered Cults to a narrow win in a closely-contested game against Kintore, and Ellon defeated Stonehaven in the first leg of their league-cup double over the weekend.  Veterans Jeremy Moir and John Eagles combined to enhance Grammar FPs’ chances of Grade 1 survival, but fell a wicket short of enforcing victory against Mannofield at Rubislaw.

At the top of Grade 2 St Ronald’s chances of the league title suffered a knock at the Duthie Park, as they were comfortably defeated by an Anchorians side, themselves well in the upper part of the table with four wickets for P Malireddy as the King’s College side were shot out for just 69, allowing Cults-Artisans to make up further ground following their defeat of Fraserburgh, V Balakrishnan scoring a half-century for the Allan Park side.  Crathie however, despite enjoying home advantage, had another disappointing day, going down by over 150 runs to Caledonian for whom Gary Duncan and H Saraswat combined to take nine wickets.

2^nd St Ronald remain on course for a second successive promotion from Grade 3 as led by an innings of 181 from their prolific batsman K Imran they easily disposed of 2^nd Kintore, while Academy maintained their challenge for promotion taking full points off 2^nd Ellon.

In Grade 4 Stoneywood-Dyce’s youth policy again nearly paid off as spin twins 11-year old Abdullah Afridi and 10-year old Ewan Davidson, the latter playing his first senior game, combined to take 5 wickets and come close to inflicting defeat on league newcomers and current leaders Knightriders, who at one point were reduced to 36 for seven; while Turriff’s hopes of challenging for promotion received a knock as they were dismissed for just 40 by Portcullis.  For Huntly Highlanders the Hayman brothers were another among the promising youngsters to figure as their side defeated a 2^nd Dunecht team for whom former Westburn stalwart Les Aldus, playing his first Grades game for ten years reeled off a spell of 12 overs for just 17 runs, on a day when across their various teams Stoneywood-Dyce had no less than five father-son combinations of players in action.  The Grades’ future seems to be in good hands.

It is understood that the Final of this year’s mpower Three Counties Cup has been scheduled for Forfar on Monday August 2^nd., while efforts continue to re-schedule the 125^th Anniversary Fixture between the Grade Select and an SCU President’s XI for the week August 9^th to 13^th.