Bangor welcomed a highly rated Woodvale to Upritchard Park on bank Holiday Monday for their opening home fixture of the new season, looking to put some points on the board after a disappointing performance away to Cloney on Saturday.
With heavy showers forecast to play havoc for most of the day, the toss would turn out to be an important factor as Woodvale elected to bat on dry and flat pitch with an outfield already soaked from the first heavy shower. The solid opening partnership of Horwood and Irwin put on 37 before Nixon had Horwood caught by Prince which brought Bunting to the crease. With excellent running and stroke play the 2 scored freely adding another 111 before Bunting fell to the spin of Patterson for a fluent 69 after surviving a very confident appeal for caught behind early in his innings. Irwin soon followed for 51 as Grossett got his first wicket of the season. The further rain delays saw an early tea and the game being reduced to a 38 over contest. The ball was by now like a bar of soap and the Woodvale batsmen capitalised with West Indian, Boyce also passing 50 in brisk fashion. The innings closed on a formidable 240 for 6, adjusted to 247 under DL.
As the sun started to shine, the Bangor reply got off to the worst possible start as both openers were clean bowled by Bunting who now with ball in hand, was having a massive influence on the game. With Nixon at the crease, there was a slight glimmer of hope as he set about crashing the ball to the boundary however when he fell for 32 to the evergreen McKeown, the game was all but lost. Resistance from Grossett (24) was the only other performance worthy of mention as Bangor struggled to 118 all out with McKeown proving the pick of the bowlers with 5 for 26.
Weather and conditions didn’t go the home sides way, but ultimately Bangor were second best on the day.
Next Saturday sees Bangor travel to The Mall to take on an Armagh side back in Senior 1 after their season in the Premier League, 1pm start.
