Published: Thursday, 21st August, 2008 8:35am

Cricket club chief lashes out after being bowled a wrong'un

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DUNFERMLINE Cricket Club are furious with the sport"s Scottish chiefs over the decision to allow their title rivals to move a match to a neutral venue almost 40 miles away.

Club treasurer Tom Gibson accused them of ignoring their own rules after permission was given to Corstorphine to switch their home match to Stirling.

The Edinburgh side"s victory, if it stands, means they could pip Dunfermline to the Second Division title if Stoneywood Dyce lose.

Even if the Aberdeen side win, the controversial decision could enable Corstorphine to leapfrog Dunfermline Knights as the two teams meet in the last match of the season.

Dunfermline, whose match against Weirs was washed out, and Stoneywood Dyce have complained about Scottish National Cricket League supremo Stewart Oliver"s decision.

Mr Gibson fumed, 'A decision was promised in 48 hours but if it"s not logical or fair we won"t leave the matter at that.

'Effectively what they"re saying is that if your ground looks like it"ll be unplayable you can go all over the country looking for another pitch.'

And he stormed, 'It"s an absolute shambles.'

He explained, 'The rules are quite simple and 6D states that each team must play every other team twice a season, home and away.

'That, to me, is quite clear.

'There"s another rule that says where a ground is unavailable, you can make submissions to Cricket Scotland for an alternative venue.

'But this ground wasn"t unavailable. It was waterlogged. Unavailable means there"s a fete or marquee on it or something similar.

'We, jointly with Stoneywood Dyce, emailed with our submissions saying the match shouldn"t have been played as the rules were bent and it should be null and void.'

If, as Dunfermline contend, the match hadn"t gone ahead Corstorphine would have received two points which would have ruled them out of the title race.

Dunfermline were equally unhappy that they weren"t informed in advance of the change, which Mr Oliver reportedly said showed 'initiative' on Corstorphine"s part.

Mr Gibson said, 'If we had known they were prepared to do this we would definitely have played Weirs at the weekend as they were boiling to play.

'If they couldn"t have found another pitch in Glasgow we would have played them at McKane.

'If you"re going to change the rules, you can"t do it with two weeks of the season left.'