Comprehensive win for locals at Shaws Bridge

Skipper Keith Martin lost the toss and Cooke elected to bat on what was a great looking track.

Cooke were soon in bother. Steven Lecky opened the bowling and with a bit of extra bounce in the track had Cooke on the back foot from the off.

He was well backed up by Jonny Stevenson, who has found some real form with the ball over the last few weeks. With Lecky’s pace and Stevenson’s swing the home team found it very difficult to score runs.

The first breakthrough came in the 7th over when Lecky had J Stinson caught in the 2nd slip by Mansing. Then the next ball L Willmott was caught behind By Keith Martin and the home side were 2 down.

Not to be outdone Stevenson claimed two scalps in the following over, that of opener F Cuttle who lost his leg stump playing around a straight one and then the danger man R Johnson who was caught and bowled without scoring. Cooke were 14 for 4 after 8 overs.

Wickets fell steadily and Cooke put up little resistance except with 20 from S Shulka and a flashy 30 from A Brown at the tail of the innings. Wickets were shared between Charlie McCrum, Matthew Lyttle and D Marshall who all had one apiece while S Hanna had two victims and Lecky ended up with 3 for 27 in what was an impressive spell of aggressive quick bowling. Cooke finished on a credible 111 when it looked like they would struggle to get into three figures.

With rain forecast Donaghcloney opened the batting with Phil Derby and Mansing. These two batted beautifully smashing anything loose to the boundary and rotating the strike continually.

The rain came in the 12th over with Donaghcloney on 62 without loss. When the rain stopped the hailstones appeared and then the thunder and lightning, suddenly it was like a winters day and not mid July. After a stoppage of just over an hour, umpire’s Andy McCollough and Nigel Smith allowed play to resume with the loss of 16 overs and a revised D/L score of 84. Only 4 more overs were needed and fittingly Mansing hit a 4 to win the game and bring up his 50 to finish on 53 not out and Phil Derby had 20 not out.

A comprehensive win for Donaghcloney and they are now fourth in the league behind Academy, BISC and Armagh. Donaghcloney would like to thank Derek Napier and Anvil Tyres for their ball sponsorship this week.