It was written in the stars after all. Muckamore, in their 150th year, have won the Gallagher Challenge Cup, 61 years after their only other triumph.
It looked as if the fourth rain shower of the day had ended the Stormont Final against Lisburn prematurely, but there was still time for another 16 balls and Muckamore needed 20 runs with seven wickets remaining.
The drama was just beginning. When Muckamore scored 14 off the first 10 balls, it left six required from the last six balls but with captain Neil Whitworth having conceded 31 runs in his three overs, and the other frontline bowlers bowled out, he turned to the experience of Nigel Jones, playing in his 10th Challenge Cup Final.
There was to be no fairytale ending for Jones, however, as Ben Calitz hit a couple of twos from the first two balls and a pull to the backward square boundary won the Cup and invited a ground invasion from the younger members of the Muckamore support. Watching on proudly was ‘Mr Muckamore’ John McCormick, the one member present from the 1963 team —Benny Craig had already left the ground — and they now have 11 more players with Cup-winning medals.
Mark Gleghorne was the other not out batter, three short of his half-century, and fittingly, in this Olympic fortnight — he played hockey for Great Britain at the 2016 Games — he was named man of the match.
The result leaves Lisburn still waiting for their first outright Challenge Cup success since 1985 when, by sheer coincidence, another Olympian, 1988 GB hockey gold medal winner Jimmy Kirkwood was man of the match and also among the spectators.
But the day belonged to Muckamore and captain Neil Gill admitted he was still “somewhere in the clouds” at the post-match presentation.
“It’s an incredible feeling,” he said. “At the start of the season we just looked to consolidate our position in the Premier League, we don’t want to be the yo-yo team — (they start the second half of the season in third place) — but we also wanted to get to the Cup Final, our last was 52 years ago. So this win is for John and Harry (McFadden) and all the older members.”
Gill admitted it was a big toss to win but conceded that Lisburn’s total of 265 for eight was probably 30 more than he would have liked to chase.
Dropped catches and misfields cost those runs but “DLS is a funny old game” and in the end it definitely helped Muckamore in their chase.
That is not to take anything away from the batters, however. The only reason it helped was because they had wickets in hand and partnerships of 32, 33 and 37 for the first three wickets were just what the doctor ordered.
The third wicket, came directly after a rain break, Jason van der Merwe cutting the first ball from Matthew Humphreys into the gloves of David Miller but thanks to Gleghorne and Caltitz, van der Merwe’s perfect Challenge Cup record goes on; seven finals, seven wins.
He also took his wickets tally in the competition to 10 when he bowled Jones, although that only let in Mark Adair, playing just his third game of the season for Lisburn.
The Ireland international, just five days after helping Ireland to their second Test match victory on the same square, hit 56 off 57 balls but in the end it was in a losing cause.
This was, at long last, Muckamore’s day.
LISBURN F Fazal c Gill b Suresh 13 J Waite st Magowan b van der Merwe 41 N Jones b van der Merwe 18 N Whitworth b Suresh 12 M Adair c Gleghorne b Henderson 56 G Halliday not out 45 D Miller b Moorhead 22 M Humphreys run out 14 J Manley c Calitz b Suresh 9 R Macbeth not out 13 Extras 22 Total (8 wkts, 50 overs) 265 Fall: 1-20 2-85 3-89 4-131 5-170 6-199 7-220 8-247 Bowling: N Gill 5-1-25-0, P Karthik 10-1-59-0, S Suresh 10-2-43-3, J van der Merwe 10-2-30-2, S Henderson 8-0-45-1, C Moorhead 7-0-56-1
MUCKAMORE (Set 168 in 32 overs) K Vardhan c Manley b Macbeth 15 S Suresh c Jones b Manley 30 M Gleghorne not out 47 J van der Merwe c Miller b Humphreys 24 B Calitz not out 42 Extras 12 Total (3 wkts, 31.3 overs) 170 Did not bat: J Magowan, N Gill, P Karthik, S Henderson, L Allen, C Moorhead Fall: 1-32 2-65 3-102 Bowling: M Adair 8-0-37-0, R Macbeth 6-2-28-1, J Manley 6-1-22-1, M Humphreys 8-0-38-1, N Whitworth 3-0-31-0, N Jones 0.3-0-8-0 Muckamore won by 7 wickets (DLS).