Lisburn remain in relegation trouble with another defeat

The home side won the toss and on a bright day, started disastrously when opener Richard Simpson was caught off the second ball of the match off the bowling of Coulter and just five overs later he was joined by his brother David when he was clean bowled, also by Coulter for one leaving Lisburn struggling at 15 for 2.

Robert Rankin began a rescue act with first Adam Berry and then Darryl Brown. The big right hander played some excellent shots interspersed with some loose ones but between himself and Berry took the Lisburn score to 35 before he lost Berry bowled by Costain for 6 in the 16th over.

CSNI made runs difficult to come by with their accurate attack and it took Rankin and Darryl Brown another nine overs to lift the Lisburn total to 78, before, just as the pair were looking more comfortable, Brown was clean bowled by Costain for 14 as his team reached 78 for 4 at the half way stage of the innings.

Rankin continued to a very welcome half century but when he had reached 53 he was caught, again in the deep off Ross. Robert had scored his runs off 85 balls and struck seven boundaries.

The fall of the fifth wicket came in the 28th over with the score on 85 and it was left to the Lisburn lower order batsmen to occupy the crease and lift the total to something approaching 175 or 180.

Neil Doak entered the fray and proved his experience with an innings of 27 and along with Mark Berry added 34 taking the tally to 112 before he was caught by Regan West off the bowling of Ross and again Lisburn were struggling to post a decent final total.

Mark Berry, in recent weeks has shown promise with the bat and again he managed a useful 17 and having lost Glen Halliday for just 7 he added 25 with Lisburn wicket keeper Neil Kilpatrick who contributed 12 in the stand before Berry was caught. Soon afterwards Kilpatrick himself was bowled by Coulter for 12 as the Lisburn innings limped to 149 all out in the 43rd over.

Again Lisburn had failed to occupy the wicket for their allotted 50 overs and a total of 149 was far from sufficient to bother the Civil Service/ North batting line-up.

Lisburn badly need an immediate break through but it was not achieved as Regen West and Alec Cowden began to pick off the bowling without much difficulty. Both Davey Simpson and Darryl Brown failed to penetrate as pair took the tally to 50 in just 12 overs.

Other bowlers were tried; Callum Atkinson, a great success in the past two matches proved to be extremely loose being struck for 35 in his three expensive overs and it took the introduction of the spin of Carl Williams to break the partnership which had reached 105 in the 18th over. He had West lbw for a match winning 63 and when Neil Doak came on at the other end, also with off spin suddenly wickets began to fall. Doak claimed the wicket of Cowden, lbw off his third ball and proceeded to have the visiting professional Amjad, clean bowled for a single.

The Civil Service score was now 107 for 3 in the 21st over and some hopes had been raised for a collapse but van de Merwe and Getkate steadied the innings with a stand of 33 which took the visitors within sight of the winning post. Neil Doak did strike again in the 31st over when he had van de Merwe lbw for 20 but just two overs later the points were secured for CSNI by the comfortable margin of six wickets leaving Lisburn no better off in the Premier League.

Lisburn’s spinners had been the success on the day with the ball turning on the dry wicket; Neil Doak was top with 3 for 19 off his 7 overs while Carl Williams again showed his worth with 1 for 34 off his full quota of 10 overs.

With Carrick managing to defeat CIYMS, giving them three wins, the match between Carrick and bottom placed Ballymena is vital next Saturday. Lisburn travel to Comber to take on second placed North Down and will do well to get a result having been well beaten twice already by their opponents.

The match against Waringstown, rearranged for last Sunday in the Park, was postponed due to heavy overnight rain and will now become a 20/20 match later in the season.