And in the blink of a glass eye rolling across the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre, the curtain came down on the 2025 Grade 1 season with Bon Accord finding themselves exiting stage left to the front of the ice cream queue for the first time since 2019. It was a great season yet again for Fazal Awan who scored the most runs and took the most wickets in Grade 1 as Bon Accord won some games at a canter.
In a fairly unique weekend of games, all of them had something riding on them, be it the top spot, or the one remaining relegation place with 2nd Aberdeen Grammar rooted to the 10th position already. With rain forecast it would have been helpful to have umpires at all of the games to ensure that a halt was called to matches when the precipitation reached the required level, but umpiring resources across the country continued to be stretched.
The new losing points bonus system, similar to that in the Eastern Premier League, meant that teams could no longer do calculations based on winning the toss and bowling out the opposition to get 10 points banked before the 2nd innings started. With so many teams having similar percentages it could have been a day of rapidly changing calculations.
Inverurie needed to avoid a points whitewash as they played Bon Accord who only needed 3 points to secure the title. Bons batted first and a couple of early wickets for Jordan Thom would have calmed any early Inverurie nerves. Unfortunately for Inverurie, Fazal Awan wasn’t one of the early victims, and his 56, along with a similar score from Nawaz Mirza, helped Bons to 252 all out, Thom taking a excellent 6 for 52. This meant Inverurie needed to score 126 to get any losing points if the match headed in that direction. The Inverurie reply reached 60 for 2 in the 15th over when rain intervened and sealed the league title for Bon Accord.
The Master Blasters title defence struggled from week 1 but a 6th win in their last 8 games pulled them clear of an unlikely relegation. Rizwan Tahir with 92 made batting look easy as Mannofield were bowled out for 238 with a quickfire 54 from Akhlaq Bashir being the icing on the Mannofield batting cake. The Master Blasters reply had reached 131 for 3 off 22 overs when the rain calculator had to be employed and predicted a Master Blasters win. Mannofield finished 3rd in Grade 1, a promising progression from 2 seasons in 5th position.
Knight Riders backed up their Aberdeenshire Cup win with a repeat of their runners up finish in 2024. Grampian were the surprise package of the season and they posted a respectable 206 for 9 at Groats Road with Rajaguru Nataraj taking 4 for 33 for Knight Riders. Anyone hoping to watch the latter part of the Knight Riders chase wouldn’t have seem much on the Frogbox transmission as the camera lacked wipers. Knight Riders lost 5 wickets as they won in the 37th over.
Aberdeen Grammar were sat in the relegation zone as they went to Gordonians in a must win match for both sides. Above average performances on the golf course have translated to the cricket pitch for Rob Swiergon, and his century made things very difficult for Gordonians as Grammar put 275 for 6 on the scoreboard. 5 for 42 from Muhammad Tanvir kept the brakes on the Gordonians innings, and when rain called a halt to proceedings after 30 overs, Gordonians were behind the required rate on 163 for 7.
Gordonians hopes of avoiding relegation required Crescent to have a major wobble on Sunday against 2nd Aberdeen Grammar who had yet to win in 2025. The latter were all out for 153 and Crescent skipper Alex Pereira led from the front yet again with an unbeaten 67 as they cruised to league safety in the 20th over for the loss of only 1 wicket.
Protests and regular rules breaches are a fairly modern phenomena and Gordonians relegation seems certain unless something untoward appears in front of the overworked Rules Committee.
Elsewhere it was heartbreak for Huntly as they lost at Freuchie in the winner takes all SPCU North East Championship tie. Young left armer Alec MacLennan took 5 for 36 as Freuchie were dismissed for an uninspiring 103. The not so young left arm bowling of Robbie Wright with 5 for 31 reduced Huntly to 51 for 6, and with rain heading their way earlier than expected, the pressure to get quick runs on the board proved too much for the lower order Huntly batters as they were all out for 78. Freuchie head to the Eastern Premier League play off against Watsonians with a very large underdog tag attached to their hopes of replacing relegated Meigle at the top table for 2026.