Academy leave it late to bowl Larne out of cup

Academy skipper Mark Shields called the toss correctly and was happy to take first use of a great-looking pitch. He opened the batting with Gerry Sloan and they had a good battle with opening bowlers Robert McKinley and Jonathan King.

McKinley bowled with great pace but couldn’t force the breakthrough, which was made by King when Trevor Dempsey took a sharp catch to dismiss Sloan for 18. Almost immediately, he trapped Peter Whitten lbw to leave Academy on 37-2.

This brought Davy Greenlees to the wicket and he and Shields put on a partnership of 129 in just 22 overs. Chris Dempsey, Gareth Alexander and Gareth Gaw bowled during this period and all bowled well, but Greenlees was in irresistible form and with such a good pitch and fast outfield he was almost impossible to bowl to. He was well supported by Shields, who made a quality 50, but the partnership was broken soon after when Gaw had him caught by Rab McClean.

King returned to bowl Greenlees for 84 and when he removed Wix soon after Curran Court Hotel-sponsored Larne were able to wrestle back control of the innings.

A good last 10 overs followed with Paul Ramsay bowling particularly well to finish with figures of 3-21 and Academy were restricted to a final total of 218 when a total in excess of 250 looked likely after 35 overs. Brian Kelso played very sensibly with the tail and smacked the last ball of the innings for six to finish unbeaten on 31.

This was obviously a very competitive total, but Larne were confident they could chase it down and they made a good start as Alexander and Murad put on 57 for the first wicket in just 12 overs.

Murad was immediately on the attack, hitting anything overpitched down the ground to the boundary and it was a lapse in concentration which saw him run out for 37.

Chris Keenan was next man in and he too kept up the attack hitting a couple of fours and a big six in getting to 18 before he was well caught by Johnny Irons off the bowling of David Moore.

Robert McKinley joined Alexander and this pair took the score to 119-2 after 25 overs. Both played with great skill, were happy to rotate the strike and put any bad balls away and Larne looked to be heading to victory, with 70 needed from the last 17 overs and with eight wickets in hand.

McKinley was soon stumped by Shields off the bowling of Sloan for 30 and Brian Boyd managed to slow the scoring rate down as he conceded just 27 in his 10-over spell. He was rewarded in is ninth over when he bowled Alexander for 56 and from a position of strength Larne proceeded to throw it away and were bowled out for just 192 with four overs remaining.

Irons returned to pick up three wickets and only Eddie Hunter threatened to win the game, with a useful 20, but it was not to be enough as they lost by 26 runs.

So there will be no cup run for Larne this year while Academy will be looking to win it for the third year in a row. It’s back to league action this weekend when Larne host Dungannon. The match ball was kindly sponsored by Swan’s Conservatories.

Academy 218-9 (J King 4-33, P Ramsay 3-21)

Larne 192 (G Alexander 56, S Murad 37, R McKinley 30)