'Class apart' James McCollum helps Waringstown extend unbeaten run with 34-run victory over North Down

​Since returning from Test tours of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, McCollum has led from the front for his club side, now scoring 178 runs across three league innings and only been dismissed once – on Saturday when he was bowled by Jacob Mulder (3/53) with a century on the horizon.

Partnerships of 80 with Morgan Topping (31) and 56 alongside captain Greg Thompson (42) helped set the platform for the Villagers before a late blitz from James Cameron-Dow (29) – making his debut due to injury and unavailability after joining the club as head coach during the winter – pushed the hosts up to 273/7.

The North Down opening combination of Ani Chore (55) and Alistair Shields (55) continued to churn out runs and they’d moved their team onto 110-0 before the former was caught off the bowling of Thompson (2/46).

Shields followed soon after with a brilliant catch in the deep from Topping and then it was over to Adam Dennison (4/31), who according to CricketEurope’s StatZone had only bowled 22.5 overs in his previous 12 seasons for Waringstown, collecting five wickets.

He almost matched that count by picking up four consecutive scalps in the North Down middle order, including professional Naushad Shaikh (19), to reduce the visitors to 191/7 and they were never able to recover despite a late cameo from skipper Peter Davison (27).

It was McCollum’s run-a-ball knock that set up the 34-run triumph and Thompson described his star batsman as a ‘class apart’.

"He has enjoyed club cricket and really bought in,” he said. “He's vice-captain this year and been a big help in the off-season.

"Prince has shown his class getting runs in every innings so far and looked a class apart. He deserved to go on and get a hundred and obviously didn't but I'm sure he will in the not too distant future."

Dennison, who has scored over 5,000 runs for the club, is perhaps the best fielder in the league and has even donned the wicketkeeper gloves when required, can now add another string to his bow.

"Denny has a habit of doing that,” added Thompson. “Against North Down a few years ago we used him and he removed Ruhan (Pretorius) in his one over of the day.

"He had two wickets in his first two overs and three in his first four. We needed somebody to step up and we talked about that at the drinks break.

"We needed somebody to bowl those overs and Denny was eager to do that and it paid off."

Waringstown are still without James Mitchell, Graham Hume and Ross Allen, but Thompson was pleased with the impact of the younger players who stepped up in their absence.

"We've said since the start of the season we want to try and expand our squad so the likes of Matthew Daly and Ben Snell, who have been around the firsts a wee bit more than most, or the likes of Seby Best that they are ready to play firsts cricket if called upon,” he said.

"We know with Inter-Provincial and international fixtures that we will have unavailabilities and most teams will experience that.

"It's having that strength in depth to cope with that and that's really pleasing that Daly came in, bowled five overs, scored 22* and looked the part.

"That's as pleasing as somebody like Prince who expects to get 70 or 80."