Armagh V Larne

Armagh V Larne (18/09/09)

Three wins in marathon weekend gives Armagh Championship joy

Armagh romped to the wins they required on another glorious September weekend to ensure that they were not only promoted from the Ulster Bank Division 1 Section 2 but with the title as champions receiving the Thomas Stewart Memorial Trophy to boot to seal what has been a memorable and well deserved triumph in the clubs 150th Anniversary season.

Friday afternoon’s game against Larne on the Mall was generally regarded to a virtual title decider given that the two sides were all square on 52 points from 13 league victories. Armagh fielded a young side with David Bullick and Michael Villiers both unavailable with work commitments and Matthew Brownlee given his league debut. With the skies overhead quite murky the umpires decided that it would be only possible to play a twenty over match but undeterred Armagh won the toss and elected to bowl first with Larne captain Baxter out leg before early on to his Armagh counterpart Kulkarni. Armagh were put swiftly onto the back foot though as Larne’s Australian number 3 Ian Hill went on the attack, cutting and driving with power and glancing with precision with steady support coming from Alexander. A much needed breakthrough came when Kulkarni held a fine high catch off the dependable bowling of Lester to get rid of Hill with the score on 68 before the half way mark. Keenan and Hodge went soon after with Lloyd Hamilton and Lester taking smart boundary catches off the disciplined bowling of talented youngster Michael Hoey. Armagh’s fielding was of the highest standard, exemplified by Colin Russell making a superb direct hit run out to remove Gareth Gaw. Alexander continued to plod along scoring mainly in singles but fell to a Kulkarni catch giving Hoey his third wicket in a terrific spell of only 12 runs off his 4 overs. To their credit, Larne did manage to bat out their 20 overs, losing wickets along the way to Colin Russell in an eventful over containing 2 wickets, 13 runs and a run out for Mark Stinson. With Hamilton and McCarter combining for a run out off the final delivery of the innings Larne had totalled a more than competitive 122 all out from their 20.

In reply, Armagh started slowly but steadily with a new opening pair of Colin Russell and Matthew Steenson entrusted with the responsibility of getting Armagh home. Gradually the two played themselves in and became more confident in the face of the Larne bowling attack with Russell taking the lead role as the run rate increased. Nerves were certainly becoming slightly frayed with the score at 48 from the first ten overs but at this point Russell aimed to step up the attack with a targeted assault on the left arm spin of Gaw and the seam of “Chunky” King with a couple of expensive overs bringing Armagh right back into the equation and probably favourites given that they had wickets in hand. Russell moved onto a fine half century with a viciously smashed “six” to great acclaim from the Mall crowd. Now tiring though he continued to be hugely aggressive but was caught off King for a fine innings of 61, dominating a superb opening partnership of 95. Armagh being Armagh, a win wouldn’t be straight-forward as both Kulkarni and Doyle were adjudged to be out leg before wicket to J,King before Steenson was made the victim of a poor decision to a ball that appeared to be very high over the stumps. However, the young batsman had played a fine knock to score his career best of 35 and taken Armagh to the verge of victory. That honour belonged to Stuart Lester who smashed a superb cover drive to the boundary to seal a memorable win by 6 wickets with an over to spare.

LARNE

G Alexander c Kulkarni* b M Hoey 17

J Baxter lbw Kulkarni* 2

I Hill c Kulkarni* b Lester 48

C Keenan c Hamilton b M Hoey 0

D Hodge c Lester b M Hoey 3

G Gaw run out (Russell) 1

T Dempsey+ b Russell 7

G Leitch c Kulkarni* b Russell 16

J King run out (Stinson/Russell) 0

C Dempsey not out 5

D King run out (Hamilton/McCarter+) 4

Extras (b 1, lb 9, nb 2, w 7, p ) 19

Total (all out, 20.0 overs) 122

FOW: 1-4 (J Baxter) 2-68 (I Hill) 3-68 (C Keenan) 4-79 (D Hodge) 5-80 (G Gaw) 6-93 (G Alexander) 7-100 (T Dempsey+) 8-101 (J King) 9-113 (G Leitch) 10-122 (D King)

CP Kulkarni 4 0 23 1

A Bratten 4 0 29 0

S Lester 4 0 14 1

M Hoey 4 0 12 3

C Russell 2 0 17 2

ARMAGH

C Russell c Leitch b J King 61

M Steenson lbw D King 35

CP Kulkarni* lbw J King 5

P Doyle lbw J King 0

S Lester not out 4

L Hamilton not out 0