Cricket returned to the Turpie & Co Sports Ground yesterday, with glorious sunshine, hailstones, snow, rain, wind and cold meaning that it was definitely a 2 sweater day and catches were going to be hard to cling onto!

Livingston unfortunately went into the game 2 short and with Glenrothes winning the toss it was always going to be a tough ask playing on the batting friendly artificial with a short boundary on one side.  That said there were some encouraging performances, 2 good catches and 2 wickets for club debutant Ahmed Ali.  2 wickets a piece for Salman Aslam and Imtiaz Khairuddin, Imtiaz being the pick of the bowlers with 2 for 25 in his 5 overs.  Unfortunately the Glenrothes batsmen did make hay plundering 294-7 in their 40 overs with their captain retiring on 115*.

In return Bobby and Hamad got off to a good start putting on 44 before Bobby was bowled for 19.  Salman and Hamad took the score onto 105 before Salman was caught for 28.  From there though the wickets fell regularly, Hamad needed to leave so retired on 61* having put up a staunch resistance and there was some lusty hitting from Jim Wilson at the close hitting 22 off 15 balls only to be the last man to fall, to a stunning one handed catch in the deep.  Livingston were finally dismissed for 154 off 31 overs.

It was a heavy loss but a good opportunity for those who played to get some practice before the season starts.  Next week there is a friendly v Fauldhouse also at home so a great chance for others to get a bit of a run out so we go into the opening matches of the season in good nick and ready to get a good start.