Seconds suffer third straight defeat against leaders

The eaton Park side were always going to be up against it, travelling to the league leaders with a weakened side due to the unavailability of Paul Campbell, Andrew Craig, and James Russell.

Having won the toss, Ballymena elected to field first.

Overall the bowling and fielding performance was very good from Ballymena restricting the home side to a total of 105 runs.

Ricky McNeill, Terry McCloskey and Trevor McBurney bowled economically, but the stand out performance with the ball was that of Matthew Bell, ending up with figures of 8 overs for 15 runs, taking five wickets.

This is a welcome return to form for Matthew who recently has struggled with the control and consistency he regularly showed two years ago in the higher leagues.

No doubt skipper David Montgomery will hope his form continues into next week’s cup game against Donaghcloney.

Chasing a relatively small total of 105, Ballymena’s batsmen could not accumulate the runs required for victory.

Seven batsmen scored under ten runs, with only one batsman out of the top five, reaching double figures – a worrying statistic.

Young James McClean however did top score with 14 and in a strengthened seconds team next week due to the first XI not having a fixture, probably deserves promotion up the order.

Ballymena were disappointed with the outcome after a great bowling performance and they will hope for an improved performance in the cup tie to kick start the team’s season.

There was a further boost for the Seconds this week as skipper Stephen Colgan successfully underwent surgery on the knee injury he sustained at the start of the season and he is aiming to be back in action in around six weeks.