Narrow defeat for Lisburn as Civil Service take two wicket win

Lisburn with a well under par score of 144, gave Civil Service/ North a great run for their money in the Park on Sunday, losing, in the end by the narrow margin of just 2 wickets.
Craig Ervine bowling for Lisburn during Saturday's match against Instonians, at Wallace Park. US1330-510cdCraig Ervine bowling for Lisburn during Saturday's match against Instonians, at Wallace Park. US1330-510cd
Craig Ervine bowling for Lisburn during Saturday's match against Instonians, at Wallace Park. US1330-510cd

Choosing to bat first, Lisburn lost opener Robert Rankin in the 3rd over for 2 but Adam Berry and Craig Ervine battled hard against the excellent bowling of Coulter and Jones. The pair got very few balls for scoring off and had laboured to a score of 33 before Ervine was caught behind the wicket off Jones for 9 in the 14th over and three overs later Berry was also caught behind off a very loose shot having fought very hard for his 12 runs.

At 37 for 3 in the 18th over, Lisburn were struggling to maintain any kind of decent run rate as the CSNI bowling continued to be extremely accurate and their good work was again rewarded in the 23rd over when Davey Simpson was caught hooking for 4 and it took a determined stand between Darryl Brown and Nathan Waller somewhat steadied the ship which realised 24 precious runs in the next 8 overs.

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Darryl Brown was batting well at this point and it was a surprise when he was clean bowled by Nieuwoudt in the 30th over for a battling 18 leaving Nathan Waller to take over the responsibility for Lisburn reaching a competitive total and for another five overs he managed to move the score on to 87 before falling once again to a shot which had him caught in the deep after a patient 21.

Lisburn were now really fighting to set a decent target and only a very dogged stand between Richard Simpson and Richard McConkey brought them close; they batted for nine overs together adding 37 vital runs taking Lisburn to a final tally of 144 as their overs ran out.

Simpson remained not out on 25 while McConkey was stumped for a very useful 21 with just 7 balls of the innings left leaving Civil Service facing the undaunting challenge of scoring just 145 to win.

The visitors opened with the seasoned West and the youthful van de Merwe and the pair were in little trouble for 10 overs before was caught at slip by Nathan Waller off the bowling of Darryl Brown. The score at this point was 47 and the arrival of Nigel Jones at the wicket was ominous for Lisburn but Brown again struck in the 14th over dismissing the Ireland player for 7 with the score on 57.

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Civil Service, coasting along with 25 overs to score the 55 runs required for victory suddenly were shocked by a Lisburn revival as they grabbed four wickets for the addition of only 5 runs.

First West was caught by Brown at cover off Craig Ervine for a chanceless 44 and in the next 3 overs, three more wickets fell as the game swung Lisburn’s way for the first time. Brown claimed a third wicket while Davey Simpson chipped in with two more as CSNI slumped to 95 for 7.

At this point, the Lisburn skipper decided not to ‘go for the jugular’ and replaced himself with Richard McConkey and when Darryl Brown’s quota of overs was completed he resorted to Richard Simpson with his slow off breaks.

The plan did not succeed as Goodall and the solid Cowden gradually got their team back into the match with a telling stand of 42 and by the time Richard Simpson had Goodall caught for a match winning 22 the damage was done and Civil Service had just 8 runs left to lift the vital league points and they did so leaving themselves on 145 for 8 winning by just 2 wickets in a very exciting game of cricket. Lisburn’s problem had always been the lack of runs with 144 proving not to be sufficient but their bowlers gave everything.

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This defeat leaves Lisburn with five wins and just three matches left; the first of these is Waringstown in the Park this Saturday and Davey Simpson will be keen to complete a ‘double’ over Waringstown. The game starts at 12pm and promises to be an interesting days cricket.