Ballymena don’t Muck-about!

Excellent attacking batting from James Kennedy, Kaushik Aphale and Andy Kirkpatrick took the home team’s score to 284 for 3 in their 50 overs. When Muckamore replied opening bat Wayne Horwood gave Ballymena a minor scare with a quickfire 70, but once he was out Ballymena spinners Steve Lazars and Simon McDowell had things very much their own way and eventually took Ballymena to victory by 100 runs.

Ballymena captain Simon McDowell won the toss and chose to bat on a wicket that, as usually happens at Eaton Park, gave some encouragement to the seam bowlers early on. Ballymena lost Steve Lazars in the first over, clean bowled by Neil Gill. Gill continued to bowl a good opening spell but the Kennedy brothers, James and David, weathered the storm and eventually James, in particular, began to punish the loose ball.

The pair had taken the score to 70 when David, who had not been his usual fluent self, was caught at point for 11. This brought the in-form Kaushik Aphale to the crease and once again he treated the Eaton Park faithful to a superb display of fluent batting skills. He started quietly and then began accumulating runs almost at will, using virtually every shot in the book. He and James Kennedy had taken the score to 131 in the 29th over when James was out LBW for 69 ; it had been a typical robust 77 ball knock from Ballymena’s former captain with 6 fours and 3 sixes.

Andy Kirkpatrick then joined Aphale and the pair rapidly proceeded to take the game completely away from a Muckamore attack that was beginning to struggle . Indeed ,by the time 36 overs had been bowled, Muckamore had tried no less than eight bowlers but it made no difference to the in-form Ballymena pair who by that stage were scoring almost at will. In fact they hammered 107 runs off the last ten overs with Kirkpatrick hitting Gill for 4 huge sixes as the opening bowler went for 33 runs in his last two overs.

Aphale ended up 99 not out and was desperately unlucky not to reach his hundred when he lost the strike with 2 balls left. His 101 ball innings had 6 fours and 2 sixes.

Kirkpatrick’s clean hitting brought him 5 sixes and 2 fours as he raced to 74 not out off only 62 balls.

Muckamore were faced with a huge run chase but clearly their opening batsman Wayne Horwood had decided he would not go down without a fight. Right from the start he went for his shots as he handed out severe punishment to Ballymena’s young opening bowlers Robert McKinley and Fergus Taylor. In fact with only 13 overs gone, Muckamore had raced to 86 for 0 and Horwood had scored 70 off 55 balls, with 4 sixes and 8 fours. Ballymena captain McDowell then brought himself on and with his second ball he had Horwood out to a well-judged catch by David Kennedy on the long-off boundary.

This was as good as it got for Muckamore as McDowell soon dismissed Drummond and then clean bowled Muckamore professional Kamtekar to end up with figures of 3 for 18 in an excellent 7 over spell at a vital stage of the game. At 116 for 4 it was clearly game over and although Peter Bates, Gill and Darren Service all passed 20

they never looked like getting close to their target. Steve Lazars came on to bowl his slow left-armers and with a skilful mixture of flight and spin he worked his way through the Muckamore lower order to finish with figures of 6 for 21 from 8.4 overs – his best figures for the club. The Muckamore innings ended at 184 off 43.4 overs, 100 runs short of the Ballymena total.

With half of theie league games played, Ballymena can be well satisfied with a return of 6 wins from 9. For a team which many pundits had predicted would be relegated Ballymena have done themselves proud, particularly with the bat. In fact Ballymena’s batting has been as good as any of the top sides and, if a little more penetration could be added to the bowling attack, the Eaton Park men could justifiably claim to be a match for any team in the Ulster Bank Premier League. Certainly, with any lingering thoughts of relegation now gone, the Ballymena players must be confident that thay can press on to finish in the top half of the table.

This Saturday Ballymena entertain Instonians at Eaton Park. The Belfast side may have slipped up in a couple of league games recently but they have got through to the semi-finals of the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup and are a force to be reckoned with.

Instonians’ top-order batting is particularly strong, so Ballymena will be glad to welcome experienced bowler Michael Glass back from holiday. Instonians have been a bit of a bogey team for Ballymena in recent years but, if the Eaton Park men perform to their best with both bat and ball, they are definitely capable of winning what could be an intriguing and exciting game of cricket.