Report and photos: Peter Rogan

The weather forecasters got it wrong when they said it would rain for most of the day - and it didn't.

And the cricket pundits got it wrong too when they forecast that League leaders Wallasey would win - and they didn’t.

The Ormskirk team did, however, get everything absolutely right, winning by the handsome margin of 7 wickets, and taking home a maximum 25 points.

Wallasey won the toss and elected to bat; without a run on the board Zahir Shehzad claimed his first wicket of the day bowling opener Jamie Crawley (0) to give Ormskirk the best of possible starts.

Zahir struck again with the score on 18 when he trapped Chris Davies (8) lbw - from their early setbacks Wallasey staged a recovery to put on 65 runs for the third wicket before it fell to the bowling of Jamie Barnes when he bowled Danny Beaver (53) to leave the score on 86-3.

From then on Jamie Barnes and Zahir Shehzad took complete control and wickets fell like nine pins, with only 35 runs being added to the total before the 10th wicket fell.

Jamie Barnes enjoyed extraordinary success to take a further 4 wickets in a spell that included a hat-trick to make the score card read; 106-7….106-8…..106-9 - at the end of the innings his figures read 11 overs, 1 maiden, 5 for 32.

While Jamie was grabbing the limelight with his hat-trick Zahir was causing havoc at the other end taking three more wickets to give him yet another 5 wicket haul - his final figures were 22.3 overs, 13 maidens, 5 for 40.

The league leaders were all out for 121 runs leaving confidence sky high in the Ormskirk dressing room!

Alex Rankin and John Armstrong opened in reply for Ormskirk with Sumit Ruikar opening the bowling and set an attacking field which would have intimidated many batsmen. Alex and John were not intimidated however and soon showed that they were in charge. Alex got off the mark with a huge 6 while John peppered the boundary at regular intervals.

The opening partnership put on 74 runs before Alex (42) was caught behind off the bowling of Harry Meehan. It had been an excellent knock that included four 4s and three 6s.

John Armstrong picked on loose deliveries and his new partner Rob Rankin scored a quick 16 before being trapped lbw by Ruikar. John reached his highly deserved half century before being caught by Andrew Beaver to give Ruikar his second and final wicket.

The 4th wicket partnership between Gary Knight (7*) and James Bone (1*) saw the winning post comfortably reached.

It was a fine victory with the two Ormskirk bowlers Jamie Barnes and Zahir Shehzad being stars of the show.

It was a close run thing between the two of them as to who would be nominated Man of the Match but that honour went to Jamie for his ‘5fer’ that included a hat-trick.