HALVERSTOWN 177 all out (33.2 overs)
Lijo Joseph 37 Juan Retief 37 Tojo Thomas 23 Craig Holman 20
Marco Chixaro 4/37
MALAHIDE 180-4 (37 overs)
Hamish Manks 81* Rajesh Kumar 61*
John Threadgold 2-18
This was a well-contested game that we were disappointed to lose having three times been in a decent position to secure a victory.
We won the toss, batted and continued on with our good form of last week. At 95-2 off 15 overs we were off to a fine start thanks to Lijo and in particular Juan, who batted really nicely and thoroughly justified an unexpected promotion up the order. All too soon we fell to 117-5 before Craig and Tojo steadied the ship a bit. While almost everyone contributed some runs and Malahide didn't fully dominate, we weren't able to capitalise on our good start. We motored along at 6 an over until we ran out of fuel, disappointingly with almost 7 overs left to bat.
We took the field thinking perhaps we were 20 or 30 runs short, but knowing we had a long list of bowlers so we were well in the game. With them at 11-2 we certainly were. They recovered, but two wickets in two balls from the captain had them at 53-4 and again we had a scent of victory. From then on despite our best efforts, various bowling changes and some close shaves, they slowly but surely took over thanks to an excellent unbeaten partnership of 127 between Manks (often plays Divison 10) and Rajesh. It wasn't to be our day despite having played some good cricket but not quite sustaining it over the course of the game.
Despite the results so far I remain hopeful because we've been very competitive in every game this season. Next up for H1 is two cup games under the captaincy of Chris Hamilton.
(A big thank you to Lijo for substituting behind the stumps and being able to walk the next day. At least we didn't hear any complaints, so I presume so!)
Written by John Threadgold