North Kildare 143-8
Batting: Kiran 30*, Sean 25*, Porkizhi 25*
Our bowling: A. Barber 2-1-8-1, N. O’Reilly 2-0-16-1, K. Hodson 3-0-20-1
Halverstown Oaks 115
Batting: S. Rix 25*, J. Hodgson 21*, T. Gale 16
Their bowling: Soum 3-0-10-3, Aravind 1.1-1-3-1, Kiran 3-0-18-1
It was always going to be a tough task for the Oaks against a strong North Kildare team on their home ground.
We were helped by a number of players returning to our ranks after injuries, weddings, travel and more, with Steve Rix, Terry Gale and Deaglán Ó Ceallaigh lining out for the first time this year.
It’s always those with the least distance to travel that are the latest to get there, and the game was held up by almost half an hour due to the late arrivals of many of the home team, but when we did get started it was in the field, North Kildare winning the toss and electing to bat.
They had strong batting right through the team, and despite our best efforts and some good wickets from Andy Barber and Niall O’Reilly, they scored at a steady rate throughout. Porkizhi (25), Sean (25) and Kiran (30) all retired unbeaten. As they accelerated in the latter end of their innings, a T20 International type score above 170 seemed very likely. But we redoubled our efforts, and worked hard in the field to keep them under 150, as the hosts finished eventually on 143.
Nonetheless, a target of 144 was always likely to be stretch for us. Losing a couple of our top order batters early on didn’t help, but Steve Rix hung around to reach 26* and keep us in the game. Unfortunately the early batters, only Terry Gale (16) kept Steve company for very long!
Once again Matt (10) and Jim Hodgson (21*) gave the lower middle order a good shot in the arm, Jim remaining long enough at the end to see Steve Rix return for his second spell. When that ended far more swiftly than his first, it brought our innings to a close on 115 – a very credible and respectable total against a strong outfit, but unfortunately still 28 short.
We go again!
Written by Gerard O'Shea.