A Tight Loss for the Men’s First Eleven at Mallusk

This weekend saw Bangor 1^st XI suffer their first defeat of the season in a difficult away game to BISC. Bangor knew that Mallusk would be a difficult place to go with conditions being very different to what they are accustomed to. Bangor captain Johnny Parker won the toss and elected to field. After an exceptional first over by talismanic seamer Kennedy in his first league game of the season due to injury the BISC openers then proceeded to play with attacking intent and move the score quickly on to 40 for the loss of no wicket. To the seasiders credit, they stuck to task very well and knew that a couple of wickets would stem the flow of runs considerably. That is exactly what happened, with Kennedy picking up his first league scalp of the campaign which was closely followed by an inform Prince LBW which removed both of the hometeams opening batters. Bangor then controlled much of the innings thereafter, with wickets for Kennedy, Prince, Samunderu and English. Patrick English making his first appearance in senior league this year picking up an excellent 3 wickets bowling at the death. Some late order hitting saw BISC reach 174. A total that the Bangor side knew would be a challenge on a touch pitch and slow outfield. 

The home side then started their bowling innings very well. Offering very little in terms of loose deliveries for the batting side to feed off. Bangor lost opener Keenan run out which brough an in-form K. Samunderu to the crease. Kuda continued his fine form anchoring the innings, however, the Bangor side struggled throughout to adapt to conditions with boundaries being very difficult to come by. It was an extremely difficult pitch for new batters to adjust to so as the batting chase reached the last 8 over it was imperative that the set batters in Patterson and Samunderu continued to whittle the score down. Unfortunately, the last ball of the 34^th over saw the crucial wicket of Samunderu fall, caught at extra-cover off the bowling of Santosh Palaniswamy. This proved absolutely vital as very tight bowling from the home side allowed them to get over the line by 18 runs to a deserved win and 4 points.