Bangor III’s Achieve Double Against North Down
3 min read
With the season’s competitive matches restricted to six T20 matches there was always going to be a quick fire feel to the start of the season as Bangor III’s faced North Down III’s in back to back fixtures.
On Wednesday evening North Down visited Upritchard where Bangor won the toss and elected to field first. The visitors got off to a solid start averaging 5 runs an over in their first 4 overs before accelerating to reach 74 runs in ten overs without loss. After Andy Hare made the initial breakthrough, Ross Garrett took the wicket of the dangerous opener, I Arthur, who fell for 49, on his way to returning figures of 3-1-12-1.
With the breakthrough and the introduction of the wily Stephen Cumper Bangor started to swing the momentum back with Stephen clean bowling four players for very few runs to end with figures of 4-1-18-4. Aided by a couple of very tight overs at the death from Matt Pitts (2-0-3-0) Bangor restricted the visitors to 50 runs off the second ten overs to post a score of 124 for 7.
After Bangor lost opener Will Simpson in the third over Matt Pitts joined Patrick McMillan at the crease with the score at 12 for the start of what would prove to be a pivotal partnership. With regular rotation of the strike the pair set about accumulating runs above the required level with Patrick being the dominant partner on his way to 49 before falling to a catch on the boundary with the score at 80 in the tenth over. Matt Pitts then fell 2 runs later to bring two new batsmen, Ben Escott and Paul Houstoun to the crease. With the benefit of the good start the pair settled into a similar partnership with Ben Escott providing the controlling role scoring 31 not out as Bangor reached their target of 125 in the 19th over.
Saturday saw Bangor travel to the Green at Comber for the reverse fixture where North Down elected to bat first. Bangor made an immediate breakthrough with Andy Beech rocking back the stumps in his first over. Andy bowled his 4 over spell straight through (4-1-11-1) but the North Down batsmen took advantage of slightly looser bowling at the other end to get to 45 for 1 after 8 overs.
The middle of the innings saw Stephen Cumper and Callum Houstoun combine to rip through the heart of the batting order aided by some good fielding. Good catches were seen from Paul Taylor and Matt Pitts but the best catch of the day went to Callum Houstoun off his own bowling as he dived to his left to take a well struck straight drive inches above the ground with one hand. The pair restricted North Down to 29 runs off their 8 overs with Stephen finishing with figures of 4-1-11-2 and Callum 4-1-18-4.
North Down finished their 20 overs with 7 wickets down and a score of 96.
Bangor went calmly about their task as they looked to see off the opening bowlers and just lost 1 wicket in the first 8 overs with the score at 29. With opener Callum Houstoun falling in the 13th over for 29 (total score 54) skipper Ian Fletcher joined Andy Pyper at the crease to look at adding an injection of pace to the proceeding. The pair passed the target of 97 four overs later with Ian finishing on 27 not out and Andy 15 not out.
Match Photos from Joe McEwan can be found here
Scorecard from North Down v Bangor 22/07
Scorecard from Bangor v North Down 25/07
