Donaghcloney 1st XI make progress in the Junior Cup

Man of the man S Lecky with 53 and 4-23

Donaghcloney traveled to the Mall to face Armagh in the 2nd round of the Junior cup having recieved a bye in the first round. It was a day made for cricket and Keith Martin won the toss and elected to bat on what looked like a reasoable track. The two left handers S Hanna and P Derby saw of the new ball well and the score was on 49 when Derby was brilliantly run out with a direct hit from extra cover trying to sneak a quick signal. That brought A Harland to the crease who has struggled with form so far this season. Unfortuneately today wasn’t going to be his day again and both he and Hanna fell in quick succession with Donaghcloney on 53-3 in the 12th over. The biggest partnership of the innings was to follow as M Lyttle and J Dowds putting on 69 for the 4th wicket before Lyttle was given leg before to a straight full toss from A Walbran. J Dowds who was drafted in from the 2nd’s to replace the pro Mansing Nigade who was eligible to lay in the Junior Cup due to NCU regulations. Dowds took his opportunity well and played very fluently for his 29 before being caught behind of the bowling of H Boyd. The star of the Donaghcloney innings was S Lecky who came in at number six and dominated the bowling from the start. He had 6 boundaries in total and not afraid to go the ariel route he was on 53 when he perished caught and bowled to H Boyd’s tidy off spin. He was aided by skipper K Martin in a partnership of 50 who nudged a snappy 17 before advancing down the track to H Boyd and was stumped a yard out of his crease. The innings finished on 206 for 9 in the 50 overs with H Boyd figures of 4-37 of his 10.

Armagh then set about chasing the 4 an over they required to win the match. Skipper M Villiers looked in great touch and was quick to pounce on anything too full or too short. He in fact scored 64 of his 75 in boundaries making all the Donaghcloney bowling look ordinary at times. However at the other end no one had the same control or composure as Villiers. Wickets kept falling with no one other than C Russel who scored 11 getting into double figures. S Lecky picked up with the ball where he had left off with the bat. In an opening spell of 2-10 in 5 overs. J Stevenson bowled well in tandem with Lecky and was getting the ball to swing away from the right handers. He beat the bat on many occasions but failed to find the edge. His opening spell of 18-0 of 5 overs meant the pressure was fully on Armagh. Wickets continued to fall with Tim McClure knocking over Russel’s middle stump just as he was starting to look dangerous. Both he and Hanna shared the middle order wickets with McClure taking a spectacular one handed caught and bowled to dismiss wicketkeeper G McCartier. Lecky and Stevenson was brought back into the attack and took the last 4 wickets in just 19 balls. Lecky dismissed danger manVilliers, caught by J Dowds at deep extra cover and M Wright in consecutive balls. He finished up with figures of 4-23 in 10 overs and J Stevenson had 2-36 in 9.3 overs. M Villiers made it look easy all afternoon and had he had any support things may have been very different. As it was Armagh were all out 135 with Donaghcloney winning by 70 runs.

Donaghcloney 2nd XI suffer defeat to a strong Ballymena side in the Intermediate Cup

Donaghcloney II took on Ballymena II on a glorious summers day at the Factory ground in the last 16 of the Intermediate Cup. With Ballymena firsts having no game some players took the opportunity to play for their seconds. However with Ballymena wining the toss and electing to bat these additions made no difference with the bat as Donaghcloney got off too a good start restricting Ballymena to 5-54 after 16 overs. Brian Lyttle the pick of the bowlers, opening the bowling with figures of 3-16 in his 8 overs. Using his experience and knowledge of the pitch to lure batsmen into providing some catches for the Donaghcloney side that were successfully taken. He was also backed up by young David Houston who bowled his 4 overs for 14 runs. The game then settled down with Ballymena J.Nicholl knocking some heavy blows to Donaghcloneys batters in the middle overs. By the time Kyle Weir, Paul Lyttle and Jeff Lyttle had finished their spells of 0-32 (8), 1-33 (5) and 0-24 (2) respectively Ballymena stood at 150-5 after 31 overs. This left Ballymena sitting in a strong position with over’s and wickets in hand however the inexperienced bowling attack of Richard Lyttle 2-35 (8) and Conor Woods 2-25 (5) managed to restrict Ballymena to 190-9 in their 40 overs. A special mention once again for Conor Woods who managed to claim the scalp of a teams highest scoring batter, a very promising start to the season for young Conor. Donaghcloney knew that the run rate would not be a problem for them but more the matter of batting the allocated 40 overs. However with M. Purse bowling his 8 overs for 1-8 in the opening spell things were always going to be tough. Donaghcloney lost Scott Armstrong and in form batsmen Stephen Lyttle early on without any trouble being made to the scorebook. Paul Lyttle and Gareth Copeland then occupied the crease facing some body line bowling for a period of time before Gareth Copeland’s stumps went flying for a hard fought 17. Richard Lyttle then played some nice shots for a well-played 26 before having his leg stump removed in a fine spell of bowling from J. Gibson of 4-14. Brian Lyttle then added another 16 before Paul Lyttle finally fell for 26. Donaghcloenys tail did not last long either before they were all out for 115. A marvellous bowling performance from Ballymena never really giving Donaghcloney a chance in chasing down 190. However the team should take heart form this performance, as Ballymena are in the league above.