Woodvale v Armagh 26/7/08

Armagh fell to a disappointing eight wicket loss on their return to action at the Ballygomartin Road against second place Woodvale. In the absence of Andrew Bratten, Gareth McCarter lost the toss but Armagh was invited to bat first on a slowish looking wicket despite the recent fair weather. Armagh started steadily but wickets fell at regular intervals, some of them self-inflicted and others slightly unfortunate in the face of decent Woodvale spin and seam bowling. Professional Charu Kulkarni was the only player to provide any positive resistance with 29 before being bowled via his bottom edge. The regular loss of wickets meant that a final total of 86 all out was never likely to be particularly competitive and so it proved as Woodvale were rarely unduly troubled in pursuit. Mark Stinson dismissed Johnston thanks to a smart catch from Alan Whitcroft then youngster Harry Boyd claimed his maiden first team wicket when he deceived home pro Khalbor into chipping a boundary catch to his compatriot Kulkarni. Unfortunately there were no further breakthroughs for the Armagh side that looked to be struggling after their break of virtually a month from their previous game against Saintfield.

McCarter found it difficult to hide his disappointment after the game about the way his side had folded to such a low score. “I wasn’t surprised that Woodvale stuck us in to bat given the conditions and our positions in the league table but I thought we could have put up a much better score and made it slightly tougher for them. We did our best in the field and were happy to get some wickets but realistically it was damage limitation by then”.

Scorecard can be found here.