McMillan & Simpson Brilliance Lead Bangors Second Eleven to Another Victory
4 min read
Bangor 2XI hosted Carrickfergus 2XI at Upritchard Park on Saturday afternoon at Upritchard Park and ran out very deserving winners as they picked up the 4th win of the season and their 3rd in a row.
The usual opening partnership of Patrick McMillan and Mark English was disrupted with Mark’s absence from the team and in in all honesty there weren’t many other suitors to the rather large Mark English hole vacated by the talisman. Step forward Will Simpson, who on his day can be a very destructive middle order batsman with an array of attacking shots at his disposal asked to open alongside Paddy. Both men rather cautiously against expectations batted very diligently as they saw of Carrick’s opening bowlers with the score on 29-0 after 10 overs.
With both batsmen set and the opening new ball bowlers safely negotiated, Paddy & Will set about increasing the run rate. The 50-run partnership was brought up in the 16th over and from there on, run scoring seemed to come easily to these two as just a handful of overs later the 100-run partnership was brought up inside 20 overs with a glorious six from Paddy. Moments later, Paddy was the first to pass the half century mark with a sweetly struck 4. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery as in the following over Will too brought up his 50 with a boundary as this now flourishing partnership entered top gear.
A few more overs passed as the ball was sent to all parts of Upritchard Park before Carrick’s prayers for mercy were finally answered as Will was dismissed for a very well made 59 trying to send the ball over the pavilion and he had his furniture rearranged. With ten overs to go and with the score on 140-1, Bangor would have been eyeing up a score well over 200 and sent in the heavy artillery with Ross Garrett coming in next at 3.
To Carrick’s credit they never let the run scoring spiral out of control and kept things relatively tight as the next 5 overs yielded 35 runs as Paddy and Ross racked up the runs. Paddy was now nearing a very well-deserved century at this point, however tragedy struck in the 30th over as he picked out a fielder to be dismissed for 84, a very fine innings from him. Five overs remained and with a shed load of Bangor batsmen still remaining the intentions were clear with everyone trying to hit boundaries. Despite no one quite being a destructive force at the end, Bangor passed 200 ending on 204-6 off their 35 overs with the undoubted highlights being the 140-run opening partnership.
With a stacked bowling department at their disposal, Bangor were very confident of defending their total after the tea break. The new ball was handed to Michael Skelly and Adam Simmonite who was fresh from his return from University in England. Both bowlers bowled very troubling line and lengths to the Carrick batsmen who struggled to assert themselves. Adam picked up the first wicket of the innings in his second over as he forced Murdock to edge one behind. Simmonite & Skelly kept things very tight with run scoring coming at a premium for the Carrick batsmen but to their credit they navigated themselves to 28-1 after 10 overs, a similar position Bangor were in their innings.
Skipper Pyper threw the ball to change bowlers Stephen Skelly and Josh Walker who continued the good work of those before them and continued to probe away looking for more wickets. Both bowlers picked up their first wickets fairly quickly on and with the Carrick middle order exposed and with a mammoth total still to get, Bangor were in the ascendency. Stephen continued to bang away on a challenging line & length and was duly rewarded, picking up two more wickets to register impressive figures of 3-39 off 6 overs.
Carrick were on the ropes at this point losing wickets regularly and were dismissed in the end for 134 with Will Simpson completing his fine day out picking up 2 late wickets. Conor Cox continued the great work of the Bangor bowlers bowling a tight line as he picked up two bowled wickets. Bangor are next in action at home to CIYMS 3XI this Saturday as they look for their fourth win in a row, all support is very welcome!
BCC 2XI 204-6 35 Overs
P McMillan 84, W Simpson 59, R Garrett 27
PT Asten 2-14
Car 2XI 134ao 28.2 Overs
B Clement 20, G Armstrong 36
S Skelly 3-39, W Simpson 2-28, C Cox 2-7
Bangor 2XI win by 70 Runs
