Uddingston Cricket Club just one win from Premier crown

Leaders Uddingston – whose home league game against second placed Prestwick last Saturday was abandoned early in the hosts’ reply innings – will clinch the title with success at fifth placed Clydesdale this Saturday.

Uddingston skipper Bryan Clarke told the Times and Speaker: “If we win we are definitely champions. If our game is washed out we will be champions.

“The only way we can’t be champions is if we lose and Prestwick win their last game at home to Ferguslie.

“It is in our own hands. We will train really hard this week and make sure we are as organised as possible.

“Fingers crossed we will be fine.

“There would be a great sense of achievement if we win the league.

“It would be vindication that we have been doing things right for the last few years and set us up as a club in terms of moving forward and raising the profile.

“But it will be very difficult going to Clydesdale.

“They have the league’s best professional batsman in Richie Berrington.

“And we don’t know what the pitch will be like, which is an important variable.”

Uddingston were actually within just 40 minutes of clinching the league title last weekend.

Having bowled Prestwick out for 155 in 49.3 overs, Uddingston stood at 33 for 1 after 9.2 overs of their innings when the heavens opened and the game was abandoned.

At this point, Uddingston were just 10.3 overs away from winning the game through the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, which comes into effect when 20 overs of a match’s second innings have been bowled.

The basic principle of Duckworth-Lewis-Stern is that each team in a limited-overs match has two resources available with which to score runs (overs to play and wickets remaining), and the target is adjusted proportionally to the change in the combination of these.