HALVERSTOWN 2 v NORTH KILDARE 5
T20 CUP MATCH Monday 7th June 2021
HALVERSTOWN WON BY 9 WICKETS
NORTH KILDARE: 51 ALL OUT
Batting: M. Dodds 12 Akash 10
Bowling: A. Quayle 3-0-22-1 Akash Sharma 1-0-5-0 M. Dodds 1-0-7-0
HALVERSTOWN 2: 53 for 1 off 6.3 overs
Batting: M.Islam 25* D.Braithwaite 15 *
Bowling: P.Rosa 2-0-5-2 D.Drumm 2-1-12-2 B.McAllister 4-1-12-2 S.Uddin 0.3-0-2-1 K.Hodson 3-0-15-1 A.Pandey 1-0-1-0
There was a sense of occasion about this game: the first match of a long anticipated season, the first official competitive match played by a Halverstown second team in 13 years, the first appearance in a T20 cup match for almost all the team and the first outing of the striking new club colours. All this and a glorious day to boot with Harristown looking at its very best. It could not have been more perfect.
North Kildare were using the Adamstown Cup as an opportunity to blood a number of their younger players. Unfortunately they did not tell me this until after the team sheet had been put out – a point of no return. Not that we have too many youth players anyway: one at the last count. It was a strong Halverstown 2, despite using only players not selected for the two Halverstown 1 games on the following weekend. It certainly shows that we have strong squads for the two teams and with adequate back-up as well.
Winning the toss, North Kildare elected to bat. It didn’t take long for the first wicket to fall: just 2 overs. After that wickets fell regularly. Each change of bowler seemed to bring a wicket and of course I must mention my own double wicket maiden in my first over of the year: it can only go downhill from there! Brian McAllister bowled with his usual assured accuracy and matched my 2 for 12 figures but the standout performance in the field was Paolo Rosa with 2 for 5 off just two overs and a run out. A quite extraordinary debut! Abhi’s single over generated just 1 run for them while Sahab (with just half an over) and Kevin Hodson took a wicket apiece and Stuart bagged a run out.
We had an early wobble when Stuart Conroy top-edged a catch from Qualye, but other than that David Brathwaite calmly scored 15 not out whilst new-boy Manik Islam’s impressive big hitting took him quickly to 25 not out and a match winning 53 for 1. All this off just 6.3 overs. The game was won early to the disappointment of the large crowd (well, a dozen or so is large for us) and we were all off home early with a convincing first win under our belts and a growing sense of excitement about the season ahead.
Thanks to those who have worked to get the season going- especially Stuart Conroy for handling an unenviable workload, especially for his Covid Officer role as well as to Hubert (our Covid Officer on the day), Barry Ashmore and Tim Ronaldson for their great work on the ground- and thanks to Gunter and Jon Kirby for their umpiring.
Written by Des Drumm.