MERRION 7: 61 all out off 31.1 overs
Batting: W.Dassanayake 28 M.Kennedy 5*
Bowling: S.Bhoja 6-2-11-4 W.Dassanayake 5-2-7-3 J. Siddiqi 4-2-4-0
N.Friel 5-0-16-0 M.Kennedy 2-0-20-0
HALVERSTOWN 2: 62 for 7 off 22.1 overs
Batting: S.Conroy 12* J.Khan 12 A.Kurian 11 B.Ashmore 5
Bowling: D.Drumm 4-1-9-3 K.Hodson 7-4-10-3 A.Syed 6-2-10-2 J.Khan 3.1-2-2-1
A.Kurian 3-1-3-0 B.McAllister 4-0-9-0 A.V.Wyk 3-1-10-0 S.Conroy 1-0-5-0
I will mention last week’s game v Castleknock 4, which I missed. It’s OK: to spare blushes it will be brief. Batting first, we showed our frailty with bat, scoring just 82. No one got to double figures and extras were more than half the total. We then showed our bowling power: we lost by just one wicket. Two wickets apiece by Mathew and Anoop and one wicket for Brian, Ahsan, Kevin Threadgold and Junaid all for very few runs tells the story. But we lost. This week had echoes of that game.
Merrion were a player short and had a young and inexperienced looking team, so I was tempted to bat. However our difficulty in setting a decent target made me take the field on winning the toss. It looked the right decision. We went through higher order batsmen quickly and were in control. However Dassanayake dug in and scored 28 despite wickets falling all around him. Their 61 was more than we expected after our early successes but didn’t prompt any great worries given the team we had out. Our bowling was outstanding . Kevin Hodson opened and set the tone with a marvellous 3 for 10 off 7 overs, including 4 maidens. Kev was unplayable. Ahsan with 2 for 10 was not far behind and Junaid and Anoop conceded less than a run an over in their spells. I must , modestly, mention my opening over of a double wicket maiden, ending with 3 for 9. An all round super showing, including some good catches: Cecil took 2 behind the stumps, with Brian, Kevin and Adriaan taking one apiece and caught-bowled by Junaid for the last wicket. Anoop was unlucky, with 4 catches dropped off his bowling, not all of them easy though.
Thinking we would knock the runs off quickly I only listed only the first 5 batsmen before heading out to umpire. It was not too long before I was back in filling out the rest of the batting order. It was a nervy time. Our hero was opener Sean Conroy. He batted and ran carefully and finally carried his bat . He was 12 not out off 22.1 overs, every run gold dust. Only Junaid and Anoop got to double figures but at least extras were only 18% of our total this week. Their opening bowler was a slight young girl called Shiva Bhoja who bowled superbly. Junaid wondered how he would explain at home how he lost his wicket to a 13 year old girl, but this is a star in the making, taking 4 for 11 in her 6 overs. Dassanayake looked as good with the ball as he was the bat, with 3 wickets for 7. It was tight at the end, with tailenders myself and Cecil padded up, but Sean and Kevin saw us through, thankfully. As it came to the final few balls it was quite a sight to see a slip cordon of 6 fielders bravely put pressure on us. Rather anti-climatically, we won with a wide; it would have been nice to see Sean win it with a strike. It would have been no more that he deserved for another battling performance.
Des Drumm 26/5/22