Dundrum V Armagh 08/06/08
Armagh hit rock bottom after Dundrum loss
Armagh did not enjoy their visit to newly promoted Dundrum as a six wicket loss meant the City side fell to bottom place in Section Two of the NCU league. Armagh made one change for the Sunday visit to Dundrum Meadow as Stuart Lester, returning from injury and fresh from a fine all-round performance in the 2nd XI win over Laurelvale took the place of the unavailable Michael Villiers. Armagh won the toss and elected to bat on a fair looking strip but had the worst possible start as Russell was caught behind off the first ball of the second over. A recovery was launched with David Bullick and professional Charu Kulkarni batting nicely together in partnership after a slowish start. Armagh hit a huge setback when Bullick hurt his back attempting a cut stroke and was clearly in quite a bit of pain. Bravely he opted to carry on with Russell doing his running and the partnership was worth 84 when he was unfortunate to be caught in close on the verge of drinks for a gutsy 29. Kulkarni continued undeterred and brought up his first half century for Armagh soon after before being dismissed for 59, a score that included ten delightful boundaries. Gareth Robinson and Mark Elliott scored freely and with Armagh at 147 for 3 in the 40th over it looked like a decent score could be on the cards, but the re-introduction of opening bowler Lee Connor sparked havoc in the Armagh batting as they fell to 151-9 in a chaotic 4 over spell. Lloyd Hamilton had been left stranded in this collapse and at least managed to scramble together another valuable ten runs with last man Gareth McCarter before the innings closed on 162 all out, well short of what Armagh should have been aiming for, although Connor deserves credit for his hostile display of fast bowling that brought him figures of 5 wickets for 21 runs.
Armagh re-took the field with an icy atmosphere as Dundrum had refused to grant them a substitute fielder despite the obvious discomfort Bullick was in from his back injury, but the Armagh player showed great courage to try to field at slip despite being virtually unable to move. Kulkarni picked up an early wicket when he removed McNerlin with a seaming delivery that would have been too much for most batsmen and indeed the Indian seamer troubled all the home batsmen with his pace and swing. At the other end Bratten was swinging the ball, but sometimes more than he could control and Hassard was able to connect with several swipes to the boundary. An early change brought Alan Whitcroft into the attack and he removed the Dundrum captain thanks to a decent catch from Bratten. Then followed an immensely frustrating 54 run partnership between Sri-Lankan professional Fernando and McCann as they seemed to be able to chip the ball between fielders and escape with any number of misjudgements. Fernando finally departed for 42 when he was caught off the glove by McCarter giving Whitcroft a second wicket, then McCann’s luck ran out when he smashed a decent shot back down the ground only to see Stuart Lester take a tremendous return catch for a richly deserved wicket. Armagh sniffed an opportunity with almost fifty still needed, but Maguire and Tormey batted sensibly together to see out Kulkarni then finish the game with a couple of lusty blows to seal a home win by six wickets.
Armagh captain Andrew Bratten was at a loss to explain what had went wrong after the game, conceding that the catastrophic collapse that saw his team lose six wickets for four runs completely changed the pattern of the match. “I thought that Charu Kulkarni had a superb all-round match for us today but we couldn’t really put the score that we wanted to on the board and that put under great pressure to defend especially when we were missing such a valuable bowler as David Bullick with his injury. We were disappointed that Dundrum wouldn’t provide us with a substitute fielder but that was their prerogative and we can only hope that David’s back isn’t seriously hurt with many big matches coming up. Realistically we had to win at least one of the weekends games and we couldn’t do it which isn’t good enough.”
ARMAGH
C Russell c Tormey b McCann 1
D Bullick c Hassard b Maguire 29
C Kulkarni b Maguire 59
G Robinson c Maguire b Connor 26
M Elliott c Hassard b Connor 15
L Hamilton not out 5
A Bratten * c McNerlin b McCann 0
A Whitcroft b Connor 0
S Lester c McNerlin b Connor 0
M Stinson lbw McCann 1
G McCarter + b Connor 4
Extras (b 6, lb 2, nb 0, w 14, p ) 22
Total (all out, 47.0 overs) 162
FOW: 1-1 (C Russell) 2-85 (D Bullick) 3-110 (C Kulkarni) 4-147 (M Elliott) 5-150 (G Robinson) 6-150 (A Bratten *) 7-150 (A Whitcroft) 8-150 (S Lester) 9-151 (M Stinson) 10-161 (G McCarter +) L Connor 9 3 21 5
D McCann 9 2 25 3
R Shilliday 5 0 26 0
M Fernando 10 3 29 0
N Maguire 10 0 28 2
G McNerlin 3 0 19 0
R Hassard 1 0 8 0
DUNDRUM
G McNerlin b Kulkarni 1
R Hassard c Bratten b Whitcroft 18
M Fernando c McCarter b Whitcroft 42
D McCann c&b Lester 26
N Maguire not out 29
J Tormey not out 20
Extras (b 0, lb 0, nb 1, w 27, p ) 28
Total (4 wkts, 40.5 overs) 164
FOW: 1-17 (G McNerlin) 2-35 (R Hassard) 3-89 (M Fernando) 4-115 (D McCann)
C Kulkarni 10 3 26 1 Bratten * 8.5 1 39 0
A Whitcroft 10 0 43 2
M Stinson 3 0 13 0
S Lester 9 0 43 1
| 
