HALVERSTOWN 2: 204 for 4 off 30 overs
Batting: Sean Conroy 91* A.Van Wyk 54 J.Hodgson 15 M.Hodgson 12*
Bowling M.Hodgson 6-0-14-1 D.Drumm 5-0-28-1 S.Hayes 3-0-15-0
A.Syed 6-0-32-0 S.Conroy 1-0-6-0 J.Hodgson 3-0-20-0 B.McAllister 3-0-21-0
Sn. Conroy 1-0-1-0 W.Van Wyk 1-0-17-0
LEINSTER 6: 184 for 5 off 30 overs
Batting: D.Lydon 46 A.Malik 45 M.Delaney 22* Gaurav 20 Vignash 19
Bowling: Sharan 5-0-34-2 Vignash 6-1-17-1 Gaurav 6-0-37-1 R.Henderson 1-0-4-0
Leinster, founded in 1852, has been playing in Observatory Lane since 1865. We all know the name but how many know how it got it? It was the location of the Grubb Telescope Company, a world famous manufacturer of telescopes, including the then largest in the world for the Royal Observatory of Vienna. Amazingly many are still in use today. The factory, which was manufacturing periscopes and gunsights for the Royal Navy, moved to Britain in World War 1, but there are Grubbs in Tipperary still, probably related, making the very fine Cashel Blue cheese.
Sean Conroy and Adriaan Van Wyk may not be mentioned in history books like Thomas Grubb and his son Sir Howard Grubb but they will be on the Halverstown Honours Board following their extraordinary batting performances which were key to our much needed win. The game was reduced to 30 overs for weather reasons and, having won the toss, we batted first. Ahsan set the tone with two boundaries in the first over, though he was caught in it also. Adriaan, coming in to join Sean in a wonderful 99 run partnership, hit 54 in 25 balls, including10 boundaries. At 10 overs we had 86 runs and although the pace slowed once Adriaan was out, at 20 overs we still had a most satisfactory 136 runs. With the Hodgsons chipping in nicely to finish the innings off it was Sean who took the plaudits with his incredible 91, carrying his bat to the end. Magnificent, and all he wanted to do, he said, was to beat his Dad’s 41 not out against Carlow! For Leinster the fine bowling of Vignash and Gaurav slowed the run rate down near the end, but our total was still intimidating.
Nevertheless Leinster went for it. Malik in particular hit out at everything until Jim took a good catch from me to dismiss him just short of his half century. Matthew, easily our best bowler on the day, bowled the dangerous Vignash, but Leinster still kept at it, as evidenced by 3 run outs, thanks to excellent fielding from Sean and Ahsad and the vital run out of Daniel Lydon for 46 by Matthew. At 21 overs Leinster were110 for 3, 30 runs behind our score for that over and it had looked all over. But by 27 overs, thanks to their hard running, they were just 10 runs behind our runrate. Luckily they were running out of big hitters and overs to catch us and we held on to win by 20 runs. Despite a few dropped catches, it was a fine all round team effort, but it was a special day of individual heroics for Sean in particular and also Adriaan, on his return from a back injury, and Matthew too. The Grubbs would have been impressed.
Des Drumm 9/8/23