Following last week's disappointing display, North Fermanagh 1st XI got back to winning ways last weekend with an impressive display with both bat and ball away at Newbuildings.

Newbuildings 2nds won the toss and chose to bat first. It didn’t take long for the Kesh team to strike with Chris Faris collecting the first wicket of the day, S Stott (0) with only his third ball, Chris catching the ball from his own bowling.

Badar Mahmood, not wanting to miss out, bowled G Sweeney (0) and J Bell (0) with two consecutive balls in the following over. Tight bowling from the opening pair restricted the batters, and it wasn’t until the fourth over that a run was eventually scored. Chris collected his second wicket of the day, L McClelland (10), in the 10th over, bowling the batter with a full toss ball.

The young and talented C. Simpson (57), Newbuildings opening batter, had stuck around, and over the following overs added runs with a number of the Newbuildings middle order batsmen.

David Mills and Rawal Waseem both picked up a wicket each, whilst Chaudry Lukman collected three wickets, including that of Simpson. Newbuildings finishing on 193 for 9 wickets of the 40 allotted overs.

Chris Faris (1) and Nishant Bhardwaj (24) were entrusted to open the attack for North Feremanagh. The pair also found the initial batting tough on a very hot afternoon. Faris was the first to return to the clubhouse with a ball that kept low, catching the tip of his bat and carrying on to the wickets.

Captain Greg Piergrosse (49*) was the next to bat and a steady partnership then started to add runs to the required target. Nishant got into his game, striking the ball crisply to the boundary on a number of occasions, with Piergrosse displaying his experience by rotating the strike and supporting Nishant in putting on a super run-rate. One deep shot just didn’t have enough to carry to the boundary with Nishant being caught at the rope.

Rawal Waseem (11) and Timothy Beacom (10) both added runs then Badar Mahmood (63) peppered the boundary, with nine fours and two sixes, to clearly take the game towards a North Fermanagh win.

After Badar was eventually caught by wicketkeeper C. Simpson, David Mills (9*) helped Greg to see out the run chase. North Fermanagh finishing on 195 for 5 wickets of 34 overs.

This coming Saturday, June 10, North Fermanagh firsts look to react to lasts week's defeat and head to Brigade for the League Two Cup fixture. North Fermanagh seconds welcome Coleraine Seconds to Kesh, for their League 3 Cup match.

Training continues 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.