Aphale stars with bat and ball as First XI win

Ballymena were indebted to another fine performance from Kaushik Aphale, who bowled beautifully to take 4 wickets and then followed it up with an undefeated half-century.

Despite all the rain during the week, good work by George Glass and the rest of the Eaton Park groundstaff meant play was able to start only 15 minutes late.

Simon McDowell won the toss and had little hesitation in asking the visitors to bat. And the Ballymena captain set the tone for a fine Ballymena performance in the field when he held a marvellous one-handed diving catch to dismiss Irish international Rory McCann in the fourth over.

On a slow wicket, Ballymena’s accurate bowling and tidy ground- fielding gave the normally prolific Instonians batting little opportunity to cut loose. With wickets falling at regular intervals, the Eaton Park men were able to keep the scoring rate well below three runs an over. The outstanding performance came from spin bowler Aphale who took 4 wickets for 9 runs in 10 overs.

Some resistance did come from Irish international Andrew White who reached 37 before he was trapped LBW by Michael Glass. After White’s exit, the Instonians tail did not “wag” to any extent and they were bowled out for 123 with almost 4 of their 50 overs unused.

At the tea-break, the Ballymena players were well aware that chasing 124 would not be a formality on a slow wicket, which was clearly giving some help to the spin bowlers.

Indeed their task looked much harder by the 3rd over, by which time Ballymena were 2 down without a run on the board with both James and David Kennedy back in the pavilion, clean bowled by Instonians captain Eugene Moleon.

However the in-form Aphale then came to the wicket and immediately batting looked a much easier proposition for him than for anyone else in the match. Assisted by Robert McKinley, he saw off the dangerous Moleon and then gradually upped the run-rate. After McKinley was stumped with the score at 27, Andy Kirkpatrick joined Aphale and this experienced pair proceeded to take the game away from Instonians.

Aphale had just reached 50 off 70 balls, with 6 fours, and was beginning to score almost at will when persistent rain forced the players off with the score 83 for 3 off 26.3 overs.

No more play was possible, but the Duckworth/Lewis calculation meant that Ballymena were 28 runs ahead of their Par Score so they deservedly took the points. It was unfortunate that the rain had ended things prematurely but , with only 40 more runs needed and Aphale and Kirkpatrick in total control, there is little doubt that Ballymena would still have won comfortably if the game had run its course.

This win will give the Ballymena players a real boost as they enter a very important week in their season. Yesterday evening (Monday) they started a 2-night game at Wallace Park against Lisburn.

Then on Saturday Ballymena travel to Carrick to take on another side struggling without a league win.