CRICKET REVIEW: Larne fight to death to clinch win over Ards

Larne Cricket Club held on for a nervy one-wicket win over Ards in Section 3, continuing their unbeaten run, despite a late collapse.
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Ards won the toss and elected to bat first, posting a score of 140 with Larne’s Aaron McKinley returning bowling figures of 3-30, skipper Gareth Gaw 4-24, and Charlie Cloke 2-32.

When Eddie Wilson was dismissed with the ball of the day from Devlin, Chris Dempsey joined his father Trevor. The pair looked to have set Larne up for an extremely comfortable win with dad happy to rotate the strike, leaving son Chris as the aggressor. They took the score to 91-2.

Larne reached 120-4 and were cruising but captain Gaw was pinned LBW, with his side needing 11 runs with five wickets remaining and plenty of overs to spare. But they contrived to lose four wickets for just 10 runs, leaving them tied on 140 with only one wicket remaining. Larne needn’t have worried as Barry McFaul joined Scott Weatherhead, both the youngsters showed solid defence before McFaul smashed a majestic straight four to win the game.

Skipper Gaw said: “It’s an example of why we need to kill teams off. Ards added 30 runs for their 10th wicket which almost proved crucial.”

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