Lisburn will  play in their first All-Ireland T20 Final this month after beating Brigade in a last-over Semi-Final success at Wallace Park yesterday.

Captain Neil Whitworth and professional Faiz Fazal put on a match-winning 71 for the sixth wicket after the NCU side had slumped to 80 for five, in pursuit of Brigade’s 157 for six to leave them needing seven off the last over.

Scott Macbeth bowled Whitworth with the first ball to bring David Miller to the middle and the wicket-keeper hit the Brigade bowler for six from his second ball and a single won the match with two balls to spare.

Lisburn will play Leinster in the final at Phoenix Park on Sunday week after the Rathmines side hammered Munster T20 winners Cork Harlequins in the other Semi-Final by nine wickets, after bowling them out for 45.

NCU sides – or rather CIYMS – have dominated this competition playing in all but one of the finals since 2018 and with three-time winning captain Nigel Jones now playing for Lisburn it continues his love affair with the competition.

But Brigade will look back on seven balls which probably cost them the chance of repeating their 2021 success in the competition. The first was when Iftikhar Hussain ran down the middle of the pitch – having already been warned by the umpires – and that gave Lisburn a five-run start to their replay and Mark Adair’s superb 20th over when he bowled a maiden to Davy Barr.

It completed a marvellous four-over spell by the Ireland international – in his first season at Wallace Park – as he had conceded just eight runs in his first three overs and also took the wickets of Cameron Melly and Adam McDaid in successive balls.

South African Marcello Piedt denied him a hat-trick and went on to hit more than half his side’s runs, caught off Josh Manley at the start of the 18th over for 80 from 44 balls, which included four fours and seven sixes.

He received good support from Hussain in a fourth wicket stand of 96 but either side of that, Lisburn were firmly on top.

Brigade hit back to take five wickets in the first 8.1 overs, including Jones for a golden duck and Adair leg before to Josh Wilson for two, but crucially Lisburn had 80 runs on the board after Johnny Waite’s 20 off just six balls had given them the perfect start.

Fazal, however, as he has done so often, was the immovable object and he finished 68 not out from 57 balls.

At Rathmines, only two Cork Harlequins players reached double figures as the 2021 beaten finalists, like Brigade, failed to reach a second decider.