Eaton Park men outplayed in home defeat by Civil Service

Apart from the first few overs, Ballymena were never in the game as the visitors amassed 255 for 4 and then bowled Ballymena out for 111.

When CSNI batted Ballymena’s bowlers had a couple of early successes.

First Regan West was well caught down the leg-side by stand-in wicket-keeper James Kennedy off the bowling of Fergus Taylor, and then Michael Glass bowled Jason van de Merwe to leave CSNI 19 for 2. However a huge partnership of 169 in 37 overs between Nigel Jones and Andrew Cowden followed and effectively decided the game.

Jones was in attacking mode and was soon playing shots all round the wicket. On the other hand Cowden started very slowly and was dropped early in his innings. However, as his confidence increased, he and Jones started to dominate the Ballymena bowling and the scoring rate increased to more than five an over.

Ballymena’s fielding was unusually poor and Jones was dropped at least three times in the outfield as he started to hit the ball in the air during the second half of his innings.

Eventually Ballymena did break the partnership when young Dean Reynolds took a good catch to dismiss Cowden for 56.

However Jones continued to score freely until he was caught by William Montgomery at long-on for 132. Although Jones had profited from some poor catching in the later stages of his innings, it had still been a top-class knock from the former Irish international and it ensured that his team reached a formidable 255 for 4 after their 50 overs.

When Ballymena batted it was clear that they needed to score quickly right from the start.

However, against some tight seam bowling from Allen Coulter and John Costain, the home team’s batting never looked like scoring at the required rate. Robert McKinley was out early on and then Ballymena’s key player Kaushik Aphale was caught behind for 16, just as he was starting to look good.

Worse was to follow for Ballymena during a remarkable over from Coulter – he bowled four wides but then managed to take two rather fortunate wickets, as both David Kennedy and Steve Lazars played balls onto their stumps. This left the score at 42 for 4 and Ballymena’s chances had clearly gone.

James Kennedy battled on until the 27th over , but he could never his attacking game going and was eventually caught for 9. William Montgomery, showing a welcome return to form, played some pleasant shots against the spin bowlers and reached 30 before he was out to a fine caught and bowled.

However it all became rather academic in the last few overs as the Ballymena innings fell away to 111 all out.

Ballymena can take very few pluses from this performance in a game that they had gone into with genuine hopes of winning.

At least they can take some consolation from the fact that the other two relegation strugglers, Lurgan and CIYMS, also suffered crushing defeats. Lurgan now need to win both of their last two games to avoid the drop.

Indeed it now looks as if Ballymena could well stay in Premier League without winning another game but that will not alter the fact that the players will want to end their season on a high with a couple of good performances.

On Saturday Ballymena travel to The Lawn for an extremely tough game against Waringstown.

While a victory may be too much to hope for, Ballymena captain James Kennedy will surely be asking his players for a much improved performance in all three disciplines.