Survival wait goes on for Ballymena

BALLYMENA'S hopes that the Premier League relegation issue would be settled on Saturday were dashed by the weather.

Prior to the Lurgan v. Downpatrick game the situation was that anything other than a convincing win for Downpatrick would result in Ballymena staying up.

Before the game some sceptics had suggested that an already-relegated Lurgan side, with nothing to play for, might not have been fully committed but that was certainly not the case as Lurgan raced to 110 for no wicket in only 25 overs before the rain came. Certainly at that stage Lurgan looked more likely winners than Downpatrick.

However Ballymena’s disappointment at the game being rained off has been eased by the fact that it now has to be replayed on Saturday as a 20 over match.

This reduction in overs makes Downpatrick’s task of overhauling Ballymena’s Net Run Rate even more difficult than it was before last Saturday’s game.

Now, if Lurgan win the toss and bat, then Downpatrick are doomed as the complicated Net Run Rate calculations mean that they cannot overtake Ballymena no matter what score they bowl Lurgan out for!

On the other hand, if Downpatrick bat first and win the match by 105 runs or more, they will overtake Ballymena on Net Run Rate and so avoid relegation. However it would be a remarkable achievement to win a 20 over match at senior level by such a large margin and Ballymena must be reasonably optimistic that their recent good win over Carrick will have been enough to keep them in top level cricket for another season.