Carrickfergus 1st XI consolidated their position in the top half of the Premier League, with a third straight win, when they defeated Lisburn by 52 runs in a rain effected match at Wallace Park.
The home side won the toss, and asked Carrick to bat first on a greenish wicket, and after losing an early wicket, Iain Parkhill and Jack Burton batted cautiously, with the fifty only coming up in the 18th over. Soon afterwards, Parkhill was run out for 21, and replaced by Jamie Holmes, and he and Burton then added a further 57 runs in 15 overs. The partnership featuring some excellent running between the wickets, rotating the strike all the time, and took Carrick along to 130 with 16 overs still remaining. However 130 for 2 soon became 144 for 5, as in successive overs Holmes was caught a cover for 28, Burton was caught behind for an excellent 59 which included 7 boundaries, and skipper Pat Botha was run out going for a second run. Alex Haggan and Daniel Poulton took the score past the 150 mark when light rain delayed proceedings. They managed to get back out for a further 3 overs, before rain ended the Carrick innings at 179 for 5 after 44.3 overs.
A delayed start to the Lisburn innings left them requiring 196 off 39 overs, after the DLS calculation. Openers Gionne Koopman and Glen Halliday started positively taking 26 runs off the first 5 overs, before Botha struck a vital blow when he had his fellow South African professional Koopman lbw for 9. Anthony Martin struck in the next over, bowling skipper Adam Berry before he had scored. Ashwin Shetty and Poulton continued to bowl accurately for Carrick, and the run rate required was increasing all the time. In a vain attempt to push it along, wickets fell at regular intervals, and at 98 for 6 they had only half the runs they needed with only 11 overs remaining. Halliday, who had been there from the staret, and Browne then shared a spirited partnership of 35 in 6 overs, but it was too little too late. Botha had Halliday caught at backward of square sweeping for 46, and the remaining batsmen put up little resistance as they were all out in the 38th over for 153, with Botha and Poulton finishing with 3 wickets apiece.
