Bangor fell to a disappointing defeat against Muckamore by five wickets at Uprichard Park on Saturday. The visiting side were dominant in all aspects of the game and were deserved winners. Bangor will now look to upcoming matches against the sides around them in the league, Templepatrick and Ballymena, to obtain the points their recent performances have merited,
Jonny Parker won the toss and elected to bat on a fine Uprichard Park wicket. The now established partnership of Jonny Keenan and Michael Martin took to middle looking to set up the Bangor innings. They succeeded in doing so, putting on 33 before Martin hit one to cover for a well-crafted 17. Parker joined Keenan in the middle and looked in imperious form easily picking off the bad balls and finding the boundary with regularity. Keenan and Parker had put on 19 when disaster struck as Parker feathered one behind to the receptive Magowan behind the stumps.
This brought George Prince to the crease and he shaped well before suffering the same fate as Parker. The score was now 64 for the loss of three wickets. Adam Simmonite joined Keenan in the middle and he looked assured as the two Bangor batsmen attempted to rebuild the Bangor innings. Together the pairing took the score to 88 before Simmonitewas caught at mid-off by McKinley off the bowling of Gordon for 10. This was the last meaningful partnership of the Bangor innings as wickets began to fall at alarming regularity.
Keenan batted superbly for an unbeaten 52, but unfortunately of the remaining six batsmen, none scored more than five. This meant that Bangor were all out after only 42.3 overs scoring only 134 runs. This was never going to be enough on an Uprichard Park wicket that was akin to a road. Muckamoremade the decision to go after the Bangor total in double quick time to aid their nett run rate.
Bangor bowled and fielded well as they have done all season with Simmonite, Walton, Simpson and Pyper all picking up wickets but the total was never going to trouble the Muckamore batsmen. The away side chased down the Bangor total in only 23 overs and left Bangor looking at their 13thdefeat of the season.
