Ballymena post crucial victory over Downpatrick, but can't follow it up against Waringstown

It all started with a crucial and convincing win on Thursday evening against relegation threatened Downpatrick.

Bowling first Ballymena put in a fantastic fighting performance to restrict the locals to 120 for 5 in their 20 overs.

Some tight bowling from Carl Williams, Kaushik Aphale, Michael Glass and Matthew Purse and a committed performance in the field saw the hosts reduced to 14 for 3.

Thanks mainly to a number of aggressive blows from Gavin Ringland in an undefeated innings of 64, Downpatrick managed to post what looked like a competitive total.

Openers Carl Williams and Kaushik Aphale constructed an excellent 50 run stand at more than a run a ball and not allowing the Downpatrick bowlers to deliver many dot balls.

When Aphale was out David Kennedy returned to form with a swashbuckling 52 not out including 4 huge sixes which somehow managed to land between cars in the packed club car park.

Williams saw his innings come to an end when run out attempting a second run but Kennedy remained undefeated and led Ballymena home with 8 wickets and 3 overs to spare.

Waringstown where the visitors on Saturday and once again Ballymena bowled and fielded to an extremely high level, limiting the Co Armagh team to 215 for 5 in their 50 overs.

Andrew Cousins (62) and Lee Nelson (45) batted well but the Ballymena spin quartet of Carl Williams, Kaushik Aphale, Simon McDowell & Michael Taylor performed exceptionally well and at half time Ballymena were very confident of chasing down what was seen as an about 'par score'.

Ballymena after making an excellent start then pressed the self destruct button as some rash shots saw them reduced from 33 for 0 to 40 for 3.

Aphale and James Kennedy went about rebuilding the innings and batted very responsibly in a 60 run partnership and looked to be leading the home team to victory however the partnership was abruptly halted when what could only be described as an appalling LBW decision sent a very unhappy skipper back to the pavilion for a well constructed 21.

The Waringstown players themselves seemed completely bemused at the decision but were quite rightly only too glad to accept the bit of luck that had come their way.

Shortly afterwards, Aphale's excellent and controlled innings of 62 came to an end as he tried to increase the pace and despite a well made 21 from Robert Kennedy the Ballymena innings was ended in the 44th over when still 66 runs short of victory.

This weekend sees Ballymena 1st XI on the road in Wallace Park in Lisburn. The match will start at 1pm.