Enniskillen Cricket Club made the trip to Lurgan Park on Saturday last to play Victoria 3s in their last away trip of the season in NCU Section 10.

It was a glorious early autumn day sunny and warm and the picturesque setting of Lurgan Park looked splendid as both teams assembled.

Unfortunately for the local team, they would endure another defeat by six wickets in the continuing pattern of an ever-frustrating season.

Victoria won the toss and put Enniskillen into bat on a wicket that opening batsmen Stephen and Kenny Maxwell had good knowledge of as they played for the Lurgan side for a number of years and true to form the wicket was initially slow and incredibly low with both batsmen struggling to time the ball and score freely.

Early wickets fell as well with both openers and Aby Theckanath, David Cadden and Bibin Matthew all perishing with the score only at 46.

However, Devin Carrihill coming in at number six started the recovery pushing the score along with some glorious strokeplay, eventually falling for a well-crafted 32, thereafter Bibin Tommy and Satheesh Puthenveetil maintained the momentum with some fine strokeplay Tommy finishing with 22 and Satheesh with eight both scoring at more than a run a ball to push Enniskillen's score up to 110/7 at the end of the 25 overs.

The Victoria bowling was tight and the total was just probably short of par on that wicket.

After the break, Enniskillen went into the field and straight away the Victoria batsmen scored freely as the bowlers struggled to find their length and line in the first half of Victoria's innings.

However, with the introduction of Satheesh Puthenveetil, scoring became much more difficult as he bowled with accuracy and guile and made the early breakthrough which was followed quickly by another from him and then one apiece from Kenny Maxwell and Bibin Tommy to leave Victoria with four down still needing 45 runs for victory.

But further inconsistent bowling and lacklustre fielding meant that the home team cruised to victory with wickets and overs to spare. Satheesh was the pick of the bowlers with 2/16 off his four overs but the rest of the bowlers however did not live up to the standard set by him on this occasion with too many loose balls delivered.

True to form the Lurgan Park wicket dried out during the day and was much easier to bat on in the second innings but it cannot be used as an excuse for another what can only be described as a patchy performance.

Positives from the game were several individuals batting and Satheesh who bowled an excellent spell but this needs to be backed up by more individual performances from other players which will then combine to win matches.

Only two home matches remain now starting with Cliftonville Academy 4s this Saturday and an improved performance and win would hopefully go some way to getting the team back on track before the season ends.