Morecambe back to winning ways against South Shore

Morecambe captain Ryan Pearson won the toss and elected to bat on what looked a good deck at Woodhill Lane, although as the game began the wicket was shown to be a little two paced and occasionally had indifferent bounce.

Morecambe once again started shakily with Mark Woodhead (2), Andrew Creech (7) and in-form batsmen Sam Owen (13) all back in the hutch with the score 25-3, all falling to the standout bowler for South Shore, Tyne Davis (6-42).

At this point the game could have gone the same way as the previous week but captain Pearson (82) and overseas amateur Deno Baker (66) began to repair the damage with what proved to be a match-winning partnership of 150 runs.

With five overs to go, Morecambe looked set to post a score well in excess of 200 but instead scrambled their way to the double century as the middle and lower order failed to add any emphasis to what had gone before.

Morecambe made a positive with the ball as both Jamie Cassidy (2-43) and Lloyd Smith (1-17) picked up early wickets to have the visitors on the back foot at 27-3.

This soon became 47-7 after the introduction of Baker (5-67) who started off bowling with good pace, flight and spin and was bamboozling the South Shore batsmen.

Nathan Bolus (80no) was South Shores star man following on from his 100 the previous week, he played in a counter attacking style that shocked Morecambe.

A partnership of 30 with Holmes (7) and then another of 70 with No.10 Hall (30) made the game interesting and in what could have become an embarrassing day for Morecambe after the drop in intensity but it was nothing but a scare as the season’s star man with the ball Graeme Cassidy took the last two wickets in quick succession to finish with figures of 2-21.

Morecambe finished the game with the full 12 point allocation to move to within one point of Preston, who lost their first game of the season at the weekend. Morecambe travel to West Cliff on Saturday in a top of the table clash against Preston in what should be an important and interesting game of cricket, wickets are pitched at 1.30pm.