Weakened seconds suffer defeat

Lisburn won the toss and elected to bat. The Lisburn opening batsmen of Michael Turkington and Ricky Finlay were not in any trouble until former senior league cricketer Turkington received a ‘half tracker’ from CSNI skipper Colin Andrews, but unfortunately badly mistimed his shot and was caught at mid wicket.

This brought Nathan Cartmill to the wicket and he played nicely until he was caught out for a well played 31.

The policy of bringing on youth has always been foremost in the plans of Lisburn CC and it was encouraging to see young Nathan Doak and Michael Glass given a chance at 4 and 6.

When both were out it brought the somewhat more experienced pair to the wicket in the form of Jonny Ritchie and Ricky Finlay. Both decided to up the scoring rate and scored quickly. Ritchie is an excellent timer of a ball and raced to 29 including three 4s and a six while Finlay reversed that by hitting three 6s and a four in his quickfire 44.

When both were out the innings petered off very tamely and finished with Lisburn scoring a below par 174 which included 29 extras.

Lisburn were very under strength in the bowling department and despite an early breakthrough, the bowlers found it hard going. Even the ever dependable Richard Booth, Derek Suffern and Ian Glass had no joy.

It was the introduction of young Nathan Doak and in particular Michael Glass that brought some positivity to the Lisburn attack as both showed no nerves and bowled extremely well.

Glass finishing with figures of 1-14 in his four overs and compliments from the oppostion in the former of senior player Corin Goodall as to how well he had bowled. Goodall finishing on 56 not out as CSNI cruised to a deserved victory.

So a heavy 7 wicket defeat for the lads, not ideal preperation for the Junior Cup quarter final against North Down this Saturday.