OAKS: 52 for 8 off 20 overs
Batting: P.O’Siochru 8 B.McAllister 6* S. Hayes 6
Bowling: B.McAllister 2-0-5-0 A.Barber 2-0-7-0 D.Drumm 2-0-7-0
P.O’Siochru 0.4-0-3-0 J.Kirby 1-0-7-0 P.Carroll 2-0-21-0
RTE: 53 for 0 off 9.4 overs
Batting: D.Bannerjee 20* P.Souter 15* M.Aspland 5*
Bowling: Aspland 2-0-7-2 Souter 2-1-1-1 Cullen 2-0-4-1 Kenny 2-0-4-1 Gormley 2-0-5-1
Fallon 2-0-9-1 Ellison 2-2-0-0 Marsh 2-0-5-0 D.Horan 2-0-7-0 Bannerjee 2-0-8-0
After the excitement of a Carlow game last week where , after a difficult start, we made a decent game of it, the RTE match proved something of a damp squib for us. Not damp enough for rain to stop play, unfortunately.The good news was that RTE did not have their outside broadcast cameras with them to record what a rather dismal batting performance.
I blame myself: firstly for winning the toss, secondly for then choosing to bat and finally for (mostly) reversing the batting order from last week. Egalitarianism is not the best way to win cricket matches.Mostly though for underestimating how good RTE were . They were very good. And ruthless.
Our batting “highlights” show Patrick, in his second ever competitive (!) game of cricket, as our highest scorer with 8. To be fair to Brian he was not in long before being taken off to spread the batting around, so his 6 not out was a good runner-up. It is not worth mentioning any others in the context of batting. Despite the surprisingly high total of 15 in extras, RTE’s bowling was excellent. In true Taverners spirit they gave 2 overs to everyone, it was just that they could all bowl.
Although Ellison does not appear amongst the wicket takers,he opened the bowling and bowled 2 maidens. Indeed after 3 overs we had just 3 runs and it took us 10 overs to pass the 2 runs per over mark. It was tough out there, and even tougher to watch.
RTE were not messing about when it came to the batting either. Captain Peter Souter opened with Bannerjee, two good batsmen who were not in retiring mode or mood. We bowled tidily on the whole but, disappointingly, failed to take a wicket. Bannerjee retired when his 20 was up and was ably replace by Aspland, who had already taken 2 for 7 bowling. He quickly knocked off the few runs needed ahead of the what looked like oncoming rain. We could now go home and brood on our sound thrashing by 9 wickets (or 10 if you don’t count a retirement as a wicket, which we are not). To be fair we have done worse, such as our 29 all out against Kilkenny last season, despite a team strengthened with a number of league players or, also in 2019, a 2nd innings total of 14 all out against Chapelizod with Terrence Case taking 3 for 4 against his own team. So not so bad after all!
Special thanks to John Brown who not only umpired but acted as our Covid 19 officer.