As their first round Junior Cup tie away to Bangor II was a rearranged fixture and had been rained off twice, it had to be settled by a bowl out, but Dungannon won't be complaining as they came out on the right side!
In this situation, five bowlers from each team have to bowl alternatively from 22 yards at the 9 inch wide, 28 1/2 inches high wicket and an error of half a degree results in a miss. Thus the bowler needs to be extremely accurate to achieve a hit. I
t is like a penalty shoot-out, but it is much harder.
The bowl out took place simultaneously in Dungannon and Bangor with one umpire in each location communicating by mobile phone to inform the opposition of the result of each bowl. This prevented Dungannon having to drive to Bangor for a ten minute bowl out.
Bangor are won the toss and elected to bowl first.
BALL 1: The first Bangor bowler bowled a wide and a MISS. The Dungannon captain Stephen Forsythe replied with a MISS.
SCORE: 0-0
BALL 2: The second Bangor bowler recorded a hit. Dungannon's Chris Adrain replied with a MISS. It appeared as if Bangor had taken a 1-0 lead but the umpire in Bangor suddenly realised that the same player had bowled twice for Bangor. He deemed the second delivery as being illegal. This was communicated to the umpire in Dungannon, who informed the Dungannon players of the new situation, much to Dungannon's relief.
A 10 minute interval occurred in the bowl out as the umpire explained to Bangor that the wide did not entitle a bowler to a second ball. The correct second Bangor player then bowled a wide and a miss.
SCORE: 0-0
BALL 3: The third Bangor player bowled a wide and a MISS. Dungannon's David Ferguson replied with a MISS.
SCORE: 0-0
BALL 4: The fourth Bangor player bowled a wide and a MISS. Dungannon's Steve Kelly replied for Dungannon with a HIT to give the Dungannon the lead in the tie.
SCORE: 1-0
BALL 5: The fifth Bangor player had a MISS.
The fifth Dungannon player was not required to bowl, much to his relief.
RESULT: Dungannon 1 Bangor II 0
It was, therefore, quite a fair result, considering the three wides bowled by the Bangor players.
Stephen Kelly was the Dungannon hero coming to the rescue with a hit. He is their bowl out expert as he also scored a direct hit in a bowl out against BISC two years ago, although this resulted in a 2-1 defeat. He now stands two hits from two balls in bowl outs, a great effort from a player better known for his batting than his bowling. The bowlers need to follow his example.
Dungannon will now go on to play CSNI or Templepatrick, who were the losing finalists in 2008, next Saturday in the second round.
This will hopefully be the first match to be played this year as the others have been washed out by the continuous rain.
Meantime, the Dungannon club is still very worried that the remedial work to restore the Dungannon Park outfield to its previous condition , before "Countryfest" took place, will not be carried out in time to allow the club to play next year never mind this year.
The outfield was not levelled and harrowed before reseeding. There are a large number of humps and hollows as well as ruts in the untreated areas of the outfield which will make it unplayable.
It is apparent that no effort was made to merge the interface between the ploughed and unploughed areas.
The club is worried that they could thus face expulsion from the Northern Cricket Union and this could finish cricket in Dungannon if the necessary work is not carried out over the summer months.
