Armagh v Muckamore 05/06/2010

Armagh suffer in the heat as Muckamore win.

Armagh lost their fourth consecutive match in Division One Section One of the Ulster Bank Senior League as promotion hopefuls Muckamore sealed a comprehensive victory to underline their title credentials.

With no match the previous Saturday after the Cliftonville game was washed out; Armagh were raring to go and took to the field in good spirits despite being disappointed to lose the toss as conditions were perfect for batting with a fast pitch and quick outfield. Armagh’s opening pair of Harry Doyle and Mark Stinson started well and had the opposition’s quality opening batsmen in all sorts of problems. Unfortunately professional Kamtekar was given an early reprieve that Armagh would come to regret, but no mistake was made when Baguley edged Doyle behind where Michael Villiers held a catch at slip. Soon after Doyle had a second victim to end a good spell when Stinson held a fine high catch on the fine leg boundary to get rid of Van der Merwe. Alan Whitcroft and David Bullick then looked to apply the brakes on the Muckamore scoring with their tight medium pace bowling and the former produced a cracking delivery to clean bowl former Ireland international Coetzee. Dunlop followed soon after leg before to Bullick and when Drummond ran out of luck to be caught behind by McCarter off the same bowler, Muckamore were in a bit of trouble at 123-5. At this stage Kamtekar was on 48 not out and together with Neill they added 111 runs in the next 16 overs with the Indian professional showing his skill and class to bring up a quite fantastic century as no bowler was spared punishment to shots all around the wicket. Stinson returned to remove Neill in his second spell as Armagh didn’t flag in the heat. Michael Hoey came in for severe punishment from Kamtekar’s onslaught but to his credit he didn’t take a step back and hugely deserved to pick up the Indian’s wicket with a well judged caught and bowled dismissal, although with 135 the damage had largely been done. With Alan Whitcroft having left the field injured, Matthew Steenson had the unenviable task of bowling two of the final three overs and did a terrific job to take two wickets and completed a run out as Muckamore were dismissed for an impressive total of 285 off the final ball of their 50 overs.

Pursuing such a large total was never likely to be easy for Armagh but they started with decent intent through left handed opening pair Philip Doyle and Dean Lester. Doyle in particular seemed in good touch as he batted with good intent undeterred by the loss of Lester bowled by Gill. Villiers also scored quickly as Armagh passed fifty and were actually ahead of Muckamore’s scoring rate. As so often happens though a horrific collapse was only just around the corner as 57-1 became 70-6 in a matter of overs as the innocuous off-spin of Van der Merwe wreaked havoc, accounting for Doyle, Steenson, Bullick and Hoey. Armagh’s hopes of success were now all but gone but thankfully Colin Russell and Harry Doyle recovered some face for the home team with a composed partnership of 57 with both players looking in good touch against the Muckamore spinners. Unfortunately for Russell his innings was ended three short of the half century his efforts deserved when he top-edged a delivery from Coetzee; his innings of 47 containing 5 boundaries and one maximum six. Stinson, McCarter and the injured Whitcroft weren’t able to provide much resistance as Doyle finished unbeaten on 22 and Armagh totalling 145 all out; a comprehensive 140 run defeat.

Naturally captain Gareth McCarter was deflated after the game with the margin of defeat “Dropping Kamtekar was criminal early on and naturally I am personally gutted about that, but credit to him for a terrific innings. I actually thought we bowled and fielded pretty well in the heat against good players so credit to the boys for that. With the bat we gave away another decent start and the middle order crumbled to the spin so we have to see how to deal with that a little bit better.”