Last weekend saw North Fermanagh Cricket Club continue their impressive start to the season with both bat and ball. On Saturday, the First XI welcomed Drummond to Kesh for what turned out to be an exciting and at times heated encounter. Graeme Fitzpatrick, Fermanagh Captain, won the toss and elected to field first.

His trust in his opening bowlers soon paid off as Drummond’s opening two batters, S. Irwin (1) and D. Holmes (5) were both dispatched back to the club house.

Irwin was caught LBW from the sharp and precise bowling of David Mills. The wicket of Kennedy soon followed as he was also caught LBW by Badar Mahmood.

The next pair of batters, M. Lynch (39) and P. McIlmoyle (21), started to build a steady partnership.

Lynch eventually caught by Rawal Waseem from the bowling of Badar.

A flurry of wickets then followed with Rawal, Chris Faris, Keiran Shead and another from David Mills helping to limit Drummond’s total to 126 for 9 from their 30 overs.

In reply, North Fermanagh opened the batting with David Mills (7) and Chris Faris (28). After Mills was bowled by D. Holmes, both Rawal Waseem and Usama Chaudhry found it difficult to deal with the Drummond bowling.

A partnership of Faris and Greg Piergrosse (18) and then Badar Mahmood (31) helped the home side’s run tally.

Towards the end of the innings, Matthew Morrison, and Sam Galloway and Kieran Shead looked like they were going to reach the required runs until the last ball when Sam Galloway was mankaded by the bowler.

A heated exchange followed, as although within the rules of the game, to be mankaded without warning is still viewed as being unsportsmanlike. The match finished with the scores tied on 126.

After the disappointment of Saturday’s finish, both teams headed on the road on Sunday.

The second XI travelled to Donemana and again put on a brilliant display. Donemana won the toss and opted to bat first, scoring 108.

In response, North Fermanagh started slowly with the loss of two early wickets. Basit (12) and Rawal (66*) then started to apply pressure, with Rawal scoring a number of boundaries.

After Basit was bowled, Captain Muhammad Asif (22*) came to the crease and the batting pair soon saw out the required runs, reaching the target of 109 of just 17 overs.

The First XI travelled back to Bready for the rearranged Cup fixture that was rained off the previous week. Bready won the toss and opted to bowl first.

Timothy Beacom (18) and David Mills (3) opened the batting and started well. Mills was the first to be out after a wayward ball was caught by C. Allen.

Chris Faris (63) soon got into his stride and was finding the boundary with ease. His impressive total included four sixes – the ball being struck sweetly from the centre of the bat, both Usama Chaudhry (11) and Matthew Morrison (21) helping to add runs.

The innings finished with Greg Piergrosse (23*) and Kieran Shead (6*) both reaching the boundary, North Fermanagh setting an impressive total of 169 for 7 of the 30 overs.

The NFCC bowlers quickly got into their rhythm with David Mills and Chris Faris both having their best performances of the season so far with the ball.

Only C. Allen (51) was able to deal with the Fermanagh bowling, with Bready being 18 for 5 after the first 10 overs. A late rally saw the home side finish on 106 for 9 from their 30 overs.

Bowling figures of three wickets for 15 runs from six overs for Chris Faris to go along with his impressive 63 runs with the bat, made him the stand-out performer of the day.

The North Fermanagh first team welcome Letterkenny to the NFCC Grounds, Kesh this coming Saturday whilst the seconds head to Bready on Sunday.

Training continues on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6.30pm at the ground in Kesh. Anyone interested in participating are welcome to attend and give cricket a go – experience is not required, and all are very welcome.