Glory for Muckamore in Ulster Junior Shield
Thursday, 14 August 2008
ONCE again heavy overnight rain brought a rather premature cancellation of Muckamore matches on Saturday.
All three of the scheduled matches were called off rather early as the weather improved from mid morning to leave all the players twiddling their thumbs on what turned out to be a rather nice afternoon.
The most important of these matches was the Intermediate Cup Final at Lurgan between the Seconds and Laurelvale Seconds which has been rescheduled for this coming Saturday at the same venue.
Although Sunday morning was laced with very heavy showers the First team set off to the North West to play St Johnston at Burndennett, in the final of the Ulster Junior Shield, the competition between the North West and NCU Section 2 Clubs.
Muckamore won the toss and asked the opposition to bat first against opening bowlers Neil Gill and Richard Keates.
Andrew Fleming and David Macbeth opened for St Johnston and took the score to 23 runs before Keates bowled the latter in the eighth over.
New batsman David Fleming lasted only ffour overs before he was called to take a quick run after the ball was played to 'gully' fielder Bryan Baguley.
His brilliant one movement pick up and return allowed wicketkeeper Brian Dunlop to run Fleming out to leave St Johnston on 38 runs for two wickets in the 12th over.
Allen replaced Gill from the Pavilion End and new batsman Dixit was well caught by Michael Kennedy on the long on boundary after he couldn't resist having a go for a big hit.
Alan Macbeth joined Fleming and they shared a fourth wicket stand of 73 runs before the latter was caught on the long off boundary by Kennedy off a Jason Van Der Merwe delivery in the 31st over.
Two quick wickets fell in the next three overs as Allan Macbeth was run out after wicketkeeper Dunlop returned the ball to the other end to allow Van Der Merwe to break the wicket and Ian Macbeth holed out to long on fielder Connor Breet off a Kamtekar delivery, to leave St Johnston on 126 runs for six wickets in the 34th over.
A burst of 24 runs in just four overs between Goud and Porter before the former was stumped by Dunlop after a rash swing at a Kamtekar delivery brought the seventh wicket partnership to a close and with less than two overs remaining the final three batsmen could only muster a couple more runs.
Kumar was bowled by Gill in the 39th over and in the last over Kamtekar had Cole caught by long on fielder Breet and had Porter stumped by Dunlop off the penultimate ball of the innings for a final total of 152 runs.
