North Kildare 5 v Halverstown 2 - Sat Jul 10th 2021

North Kildare 5 win by 49 Runs

   NORTH KILDARE: 148 for 5

Batting: Ranit 62 A.Kelly 32 Bashar 9*

 Bowling: A. Quayle 4-0-16-3 Goel 4-0-8-1 Yug 3-0-10-1 Keenan 2-0-14-1


HALVERSTOWN 2: 99 ALL OUT off 20 overs

Batting: P.Rosa 18 S.Conroy 13 A.Williamson 10 A.Ayed 8 

 Bowling: D.Drumm 4-0-35-2 P.Rosa 3-0-16-1 A.Barber 2.5-0-20-1 A.Syed 4-0-26-0 K.Hodson 4-0-28-0 B.McAllister 2-0-20-0 S.Hayes 0.1-0-1-0


North Kildare are a young team. Mere pups in fact, founded as recently as 1928. We, at 136 years, are a far older team-1 and it showed. In this, the final group match in the T20 qualifiers, North Kildare fielded 3 juniors. Less than the 5 or 6 they fielded previously against us, but none of these let the side down that’s for sure. Having won the toss for the 5th time in succession I chose to field, purely because I might happen to lose it in the semi finals and we might be in an unfamiliar role, having batted first in all of our 5 games to date. Perhaps I was trying to be too clever.


Although only 9 runs were on the board before Andy Barber bowled Madassar, they coasted to 47 before Kohli fell and were at 89 before the very solid opener Adam Kelly followed, both bowled by me. At this stage, though, Ankit Rana was at the crease and causing carnage. Boundaries were coming one after the other before he was finally caught for 62 in a stunning take by Ahsan from Paolo Rosa’s bowling, sliding in from long- on on his knees. Ahsan followed up with a great run out of captain Rory Keenan but they were well on their way to a good total of 148. 


We were never up with the required pace in our reply. Openers Start Conroy and Andrew Williamson put on a handy enough 27 together to start but by the 12th over when our 4th wicket fell we had just 54 runs, nowhere near enough. Paolo couldn’t be expected to carry us again although his 18 was the highest individual score. The rest of the innings fizzled out and, as a runner for the injured Andy Barber who unfortunately pulled a muscle whilst bowling, I got him run out on the very last ball as Cecil and I tried unsuccessfully to get the team to a three figure total. It was not to be and we fell to our first defeat in the 6 group games. North Kildare bowled tightly, none more so than Under-17 Adam Quayle who took 3 for 16 off 4 overs; Under-15 Yug Bhansar took 1 for 10 off 3 and Tarun’s 1 for 8 was also noteworthy. Indeed there wasn’t a bowler who wasn’t! It doesn’t change the table: we are top and play the semi-finals at home next week. Thanks to all the 21 players who have played in the qualifiers and to those who have umpired (ie Jon Kirby!), scored and been Covid Officers. This has been an exciting time for the team and the club : very well done to all who have been part of it. 

Written by Des Drumm.

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