Report and photos: Peter Rogan

Ormskirk v Rainhill

Ormskirk came out on top in a keenly fought contest where the innings of both teams followed similar patterns in so much as both suffered fairly dramatic batting collapses after promising starts.

Ormskirk won the toss and elected to bat and lost two early wickets when George Politis (2) was bowled by Liam O’Toole and Robert Rankin was caught by Sam Kershaw off the bowling of Imiliwati Lemtur to see the score on 26-2.

A significant stand was then constructed between opener Alex Rankin and the Ormskirk skipper Gary Knight which took the score along to 103. The partnership was broken when Alex Rankin (59) was caught on the boundary to bring in Harvey Rankin with the score on 103-3.

The Rainhill bowlers started to take control and after the dismissal of Gary Knight (33) the only stern resistance came from John Armstrong who saw partner after partner returning to the pavilion. He was the last to go when having scored 35 valuable runs and in an attempt to push the score along he was stumped off the bowling of Lemtur.

At the end of the innings the score had risen to 181. It was very disappointing to see seven wickets fall for 78 runs but credit must go to the Rainhill bowler Imiliwati Lemtur who bowled exceptionally well to take 6 wickets for 59 runs.

The Rainhill reply saw them take the score to 122-3 with ex Ormskirk player Tyler McGladdery leading the way with 47 runs before being bowled by Jamie Barnes.

With Rainhill apparently cruising towards victory Gary Knight opted to stick with the bowling partnership of Zahir Shedzad and Jamie Barnes and it paid dividends; they took charge and wickets started to fall while, at the same time, the run rate was curtailed.

From what seemed to be a winning platform at 123-3, and needing 59 to secure victory, the batting collapsed even more spectacularly than had the Ormskirk innings and they were bowled out for 144.

Jamie Barnes (5-54) and Zahir Shedzad (4-35) repaid the trust that their skipper had in them and earned a victory that at times looked to be very unlikely.

The win earned 23 points to take Ormskirk to 4th place in the Premier League.