Ray Digman Trophy - Match Report OCC v S&B 18-6-17

The weather was beautiful and the crowd settled down to watch an afternoon of cup tie cricket. The weather lasted but, unfortunately, the cricket didn’t. Ormskirk proved to be much too strong for Southport & Birkdale and it was all over in double quick time.

The visitors won the toss and elected to bat on a wicket that had yielded nearly 500 runs the day before. It wasn’t long, however, before they were in deep trouble at 17 -5. Opening bowlers Scott Lees and Jamie Barnes had torn into the top order batsmen and left them wondering what had happened to them.

A sixth wicket partnership of 51 between Jon Hines (25) and Isaac Lea (19) eased the situation for S&B but when the mixture of spin from Jack Snowdon and pace from Mike Quinn came into play, wickets again started to tumble.

The batsmen simply could play either of them and Jack in his six overs claimed 4 wickets for 20 runs and Mike in three hostile overs took his wicket for just ten runs.

In 25 overs S&B were all out for 101. The bowling foursome of Scott, Jamie, Jack and Mike had simply been too good for the opposition.

With such a small total to chase down the result was inevitable. Michael Jones (60*) and John Armstrong (38*) were too good for the S&B bowlers and, two hours earlier than expected,

the game was over with Ormskirk winning by a margin of 10 wickets to progress to Round 2.

It was a great win for Ormskirk but in some ways disappointing for the spectators who had expected a much closer contest and a longer time in the sunshine enjoying the game.