5 wicket win for 1sts
Stephen Johnston’s fine form with the bat continued as an excellent innings of 90 guided Lurgan to a 5 wicket win over Holywood at Pollock Park on Saturday. The opener’s innings included 11 fours and 2 sixes as the town side passed the 168 run target set by the visitors in just the 24th over.
The first 20 overs of the Holywood innings were completely dominated by Lurgan as they had the visitors at one stage sitting on 48 for 6 with some very tight bowling and fielding that included two superb catches by Peter Hutchinson. However Holywood’s lower batting order provided resistance to the Lurgan attack, in particular Snodgrass who hit 65, and Kava who hit 43 before being the last wicket to fall, caught on the long off boundary by Callum Grieve off the bowling of Peter Hutchinson. Five Lurgan bowlers took 2 wickets each with Peter Hutchinson taking 2 for 23 off 5.4 overs, Vaibhav Sawant 2 for 25 off 5, Callum Grieve and Adam Johnson each taking 2 for 28 off 7 and Stephen Johnston capping off a fine all-round performance with 2 for 20 off 7.
And it was Stephen Johnston and skipper Jack Harrison who got the home side off to a great start putting on 68 for the first wicket before Harrison was trapped leg before by Gardner for 23. When Jack Hutchinson seemed unlucky to be given out caught at slip for 1 with the total on 94, Stephen Chambers came to the middle to put on another 48 runs with Johnston until the opener just failed to clear mid-on and was caught out just 10 runs short of yet another century. All-rounder Callum Grieve joined Chambers and the two quickly added another 26 runs to take the town side to the top of the league with 4 games remaining, the first of those at second placed Laurelvale this coming Monday and Tuesday evenings with 5.30pm starts.
