Report and photos: Peter Rogan

Ryan Maddock and Nicky Caunce opened the bowling against Formby and soon had their openers in trouble. With the first ball of his opening over Nicky Caunce, with only one run on the board, clean bowled opener Jamie Stewart (1), and dispatched the other opener Ollie Sutton (10), in the same fashion to leave Formby at 23-2.

The score progressed to 59 when Ryan Maddock took the 3rd wicket of Tatenda Taibu (40), who had looked to be in command, when he had him caught behind by George Lavelle. Ryan completed his opening spell when he took the wicket of Sam Oldam (16) having him trapped lbw.

The opening bowlers had done a good job to leave Formby on 76-4 and left the Formby skipper Elliot Ketteringham wondering if he had made the right decision, when having won the toss, electing to bat.

A Formby recovery of a 5th wicket stand of 62 followed. It was Harvey Rankin’s first Premier league wicket that broke the stand when he bowled Lukman Vahaluwala (22). With just 7 runs added he took his second wicket having Jason Underwood (50) caught by his ‘spin twin’ Tom Hartley to leave the score on 145-6.

The last four wickets fell at regular intervals with Jamie Barnes taking a wicket and Tom Hartley, off a long spell of 22 overs, adding two wickets in his impressive stint of 22 overs.

It was Nicky Caunce who stepped in to take the final wicket of Ben Aitchison (28) and the innings closed at 201.

The opening Ormskirk reply was less than impressive with top order batsmen, the exception being Tyler McGladdery (24), losing wickets very cheaply. In quick succession Alex Rankin (4), Robert Rankin (8), George Lavelle (0) and Ian Robinson (1) followed each other back to the Pavilion to leave the score on 53-5.

Heroes were needed to rescue the situation and they emerged when Gary Knight and Tom Hartley teamed up to create a 6th wicket partnership of 120 runs. They batted very sensibly by defending when necessary and attacking any bad balls to great effect. The score reached 172 when the partnership was broken with the loss of Gary Knight (70). He had played a great innings, in which over half his runs came in boundaries, to include six 4s and three 6s.

It was now down to Ryan Maddock and Tom Hartley to take Ormskirk past the winning post - and they did not disappoint...

Tom Hartley (67*), who like Gary Knight, liberally hit the bad balls to the boundary to record nine 4s, while Ryan Maddock (18*) never looked in danger of losing his wicket in support of his illustrious partner.

The victory, due mainly to the heroics of Gary Knight and Tom Hartley, was hard fought and yielded 25 points to maintain the challenge for end of season honours.