Stoneywood-Dyce fell an agonising five runs short of recording their first win of the season at home to Falkland.
They now find themselves bottom of the table with no wins from six games.
It would be easy to lay the blame at their fragile batting but on this occasion, it was the inability to knock over late order batsmen.
At 150 for seven, the People’s Park attack should have been well capable of dismissing the visitors for under 200, instead of the 214 for eight posted.
Captain Lennard Bester who was unable to take part in their sixth game of season due to a leg strain was disappointed in the outcome.
He said: “We need greater application and self belief if we are to survive in a very competitive environment.
“The ability is there but our weakness lied in not being able to stamp our authority on opponents who are certainly no better than us.
“But the league table does not lie.
“We gave away too many runs early in the day after Falkland elected to bat.”
An inspired spell of bowling from Du Preez Stander kept the visitors in check in which he took three for 31 but failure to polish off the tailenders proved to be the home side’s downfall.
The People’s Park side’s batting again looked vulnerable, and although nine of the homesters got into double figures, only George Ninan, Andrew MacLaren, Nathan Elliott and Sai Kumar passed the 20 mark.
If there are more performances like this then Aberdeen City could be left without a representative in the top grade of club cricket next season.
Even in the NE Championship there was little cheer for the region after Huntly’s unbeaten record of 16 consecutive wins came to a shuddering half at Castle Park where Perth Doo’cot were worthy winners, albeit by the narrowest of 15 run margins.
There were no excuses from captain Jack Mitchell who said: “Not enough players put there hands up.
“We have become too reliant on two or three players.
“I will expect better of them next week when we travel to Arbroath to meet the league leaders, only a win will do. It’s as simple as that.”
Mitchell was again a standout, taking four for 33, enabling his side to bowl out the Perth side for 220 and then stroking a superb 61 only to fall to 205, this despite a gutsy knock of 22 from Frank Summer.
It was left to Aberdeenshire to claim any joy in the north-east game in the derby clash against Gordonians at Mannofield where the home side were comfortable 125-run winners.
They were boosted by a magnificent 102 from 77 balls from the talented Lewis Munro but well supported by Manu Sarawat’s brilliant 71, his first half century for the club.
The Countesswells reply was stunted by some accurate home bowling from captain David Gamblen’s spell of three for 30 but it was Alex Cummings who took the main honours, claiming four for 40 to dismiss the visitors for 136.
Gamblen said: “We learned much from our good performance in the Scottish Cup last week.
“We took that form into today’s game.
“We will just need to keep on winning in this very tough league and see where that takes us.”
North East Scotland Grades
Bon Accord kept their title drive on track but only after a titanic encounter against defending champions Knight Riders who narrowly failed to hunt down the 370 set by the Links team.
A mammoth partnership of 257 for the second wicket between Fazal Awan (162) and Sajid Muhammad (112) underlined the Bons total.
The Knight Riders’ response of 361 was only nine runs short, boosted by a knock of 154 from Gautam Bhatia which included an astonishing 18 sixes.
Not surprisingly the bowling figures of both sides did not make pretty reading on a day when only 11 wickets fell in the game.
Master Blasters Aberdeen kept the pressure on Mannofield who were not in action and Bon Accord, bowling out Grampian for 70 and then passing the total required with eight wickets in hand.
Results
EASTERN PREMIER LEAGUE
Falkland 214 for 8 (25 points) (J Martins 41, R Jennings 31, D Stander 3-31, D Kidd 2-36) Stoneywood Dyce 210 for 9 (8 points) (N Ninan 29, S Kumar 27, K Jacobs 3-31, G Chambers 2-25)
Meigle 180 (4 points) (P Drummond 45no, R Gayashan 33, C Shorten 4-33, S Pillay 3-49) Stewart’s Melville 181 for 4 (25 points) (R Henry 49no, M Miller 32, R Gayashan 2-33)
Heriot’s 346 for 4 (25 points) (L Brown 172, H Van Der Berg 75, S Cameron 2-75) Forfarshire 163 (0 points) (S Cameron 59, G Main 3-20, J Hickman 3-41)
Carlton 205 (8 points) (S Khan 64, D Da Costa 39, T Pratt 3-26, G Weatherall 3-30) Watsonian 207 for 8 (25 points) (D Voas 65no, L Naylor 45, R Allardice 3-39, R McIntyre 2-63)
RH Corstorphine 162 (2 points) (O Gould 44, D Rane 35, T Foulds 6-44) Grange 165 for 3 (25 points) (A Brown 77no, H Carnegie 24, C Whitefoord 2-46)
BREEDON SPCU NORTH EAST CHAMPIONSHIP
Aberdeenshire 261 for 5 (25 points) (L Munro 102, M Saraswat 71, A Ahmed 3-54, M Khosla 2-49) Gordonians 136 (6 points) (H Saraswat 29, A Arora 20, A Cummings 4-40, D Gamblen 3-30)
Perth Doocot 220 for 8 (25 points) (T Hussain 53, A Naeem 53, J Mitchell 4-33) Huntly 205 (10 points) (J Mitchell 61, E Ward-Armstrong 32, A Naeem 4-27, T Hussain 2-41)
Strathmore 159 (25 points) (H Kiyani 26, J Shah 4-42, S Shafi 2-19) Kinloch 47 (7 points) (L Sweeney 7-18, L Trueman 3-21)
2nd Forfarshire 170 for 9 (6 points) (J Sim 44, J Girolami 26, J Meiring 3-42) Arbroath United 171 for 3 (25 points) (J Meiring 55, D Sinclair 42no)
NORTH EAST SCOTLAND CRICKET GRADES
GRADE 1
Culter Curry Bon Accord 370 for 6 (30 points) (F Awan 162, S Muhammad 112, S Kumarasamy 3-37) Knight Riders 361 for 5 (16 points) (G Bhatia 154, S Palaniappan 54, A Chattha 2-59)
Ash Accountancy Cults 70 (5 points) (U Ullah 22, S Peedikayil 6-45, C Aggarwal 3-17) TechForce Master Blasters Aberdeen 71 for 2 (30 points) (V Vijapur 33no, A Narne 23no, U Ullah 2-16)
Inverurie 220 for 5 (30 points) (T Norval 45, G Hadden 44, M Rahman 2-41) Grampian 176 (15 points) (RJoseph 79, Z Hussain 25, G Hadden 4-28, J Thom 3-47)
GRADE 2
Banchory 164 for 8 (12 points) (J Crawley 61, M Thapa 35no, K Khan 3-32) Fraserburgh 165 for 3 (30 points) (C Bowie 79no, N Gray 22)
GRADE 3
3rd Gordonians 225 for 7 (30 points) (Mahesh Patel 132no, A Mukhopadhya 21, S Chouksey 3-36) 2nd Gordonians 114 (12 points) (Y Yarasani 29, S Mir 26, V Nair 6-26)
2nd Master Blasters Aberdeen 210 for 6 (30 points) (M Khan 54, A Kolapalli 48no, M Baldry 3-42) Dunecht 106 (11 points) (M Witz 49, C Strachan 20, N Augustine 3-26, R Mandava 2-3)
2nd Mannofield 144 for 8 (9 points) Stoneywood Dyce 147 for 2 (30 points) (G Perera 48, A Madigan 41no)
Stonehaven Thistle 142 (13 points) (F Grant 4-22, B Carr 3-33) 2nd Methlick 146 for 6 (30 points) (D Reeve 43)
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