After a week’s delay to the season due the wet weather Winter & early Spring served up to Northern Ireland, competitive Cricket returns this weekend to the NCU and Upritchard Park. It’ll be a busy bank holiday weekend too across the club with six games spread across five teams in a three-day span.
The Men’s 1XI are pulling double duty travelling north to Larne on Saturday for their opening league game before a local derby against Holywood on Bank Holiday Monday at Seapark. The team will be making their second attempt at promotion back to Section 1 after missing out on the promotion chasing top 6 when the league split. This was despite losing just twice when the league split, but unfortunately down to some bad luck with the weather with an unprecedented three games voided due the wet weather experienced by the end of July.
It wasn’t a disappointing season at all though, making both cup finals which were played at home, losing the Junior Cup final to eventual league winners Lurgan and a thrilling 1 run victory against Cooke Collegians in the T20 Bowl. Skipper Jonny Parker will once again be leading the reigns and there are a couple of in’s for the squad. All Rounder Robbie van Harte our new overseas player coming into the club this year from Cape Town. He has settled in really well these past few weeks with a quick-fire half century in last weekends 46 run victory over Ards & Donaghadee in a friendly. A couple of familiar faces have re-joined too in batter Mark Hutchinson the last Bangor player to represent Ireland back in 2005, experienced seamer Glenn Watterson also re-joining the club and young spinner Christian Orr who lives locally making the move from CIYMS.
Playing at home this weekend will be the 2XI against Woodvale 3XI on Saturday and the 3XI host Cregagh 3XI on Sunday. The 2XI will be looking to bounce back from their relegation last season to Junior League 3 and with more depth in the overall Men’s 1XI & 2XI squad, hopes are high of a promising season. Conor Cox remains as captain again and he’ll be excited to have plenty of options at his disposal for his squad this season. The 3XI side kept their Junior League 5 status last year thanks to a couple of big victories near the end of the season to stave off relegation. Matt Pitts will be at the helm this year as skipper and he’ll be hoping his squad which is a mixture of experience & youth will be able to build upon their end to last season and aspire to greater and better things this season.
The 4XI & 5XI will be on the road this weekend to start their season with trips to the PSNI (Cricket team!) & Lisburn 5XI respectively. Both squads will have a similar makeup of players with a nice mixture of experienced heads & some of our young exciting players coming through at the club getting their first early experiences of senior Cricket. The 4XI side will be captained again by All Rounder Muhammad Hamza and the 5XI (aka the Dads, Lads & Gals side) will once again be captained by Rory McMillan.
Not playing this weekend but start their seasons later in the month are the Women’s 1XI and the Midweek team. It was an exciting start for Women’s 1XI in their very first competitive game as they narrowly lost out in a thriller to Carrickfergus. Hopes will be high this year that they can build on their historic first season last year and establish themselves more in the NCU. Emma Rayner will be skipper again this year and with Robbie van Harte having coached some of the current South African Women’s international players like Laura Wolvaart & Nadine de Klerk to name a few, they have a great platform this season to really develop their skills in the game even more. Finally, the Midweek team will once again have its fearless leader Tommy Speers as skipper again. The 2019 champions had a heart-breaking exit from the Midweek competition narrowly on the losing end of a tight 1 wicket defeat to Cliftonville Academy last year at the Quarter Final stage and will be hoping to build on that this season.
