Nail-biting Senior 2 Cup Win

The 2nds seem to be specialising in close finishes this year. On Sunday they came out on the right side of another last-over finish to win by 2 runs in the Park against Phoenix in the Senior 2 Cup. Carlo Rendell (50) marshalled the tail to scramble to 180. Early wickets from Andy Jackson seemed to win the Game but Phoenix rallied and a last wicket partnership of 40 took the game into the last over. Andy returned to take the decisive wicket and set up a home tie with Clontarf II in the next round.

Our 1stXI were beaten in high scoring game at Inch against North County. The decisive contribution was from Eddie Richardson scoring 118 off 89 balls in a first innings’ total of 329. It was a big ask but we gave it a go. KED Carroll (81) led from the front again and Adrian Murphy (58), Mo Tariq (45), and Charith Fernando (29) dispatched balls into the adjacent fields in mid innings blitz that worried the home support. But we lost wickets at regular intervals and finished the innings all out for 264 after 43.5 overs.

At the same time the 3rds wrapped up a straight-forward 8 wicket win against North County 3rds at Park Avenue. The visitors only posted 125 thanks to 3 wickets from Hamza Mann and three run outs. We chased this down without much difficulty thanks to 40 from Robb Abbott and 50 odd not out from Ger O’Brien.

In the other matches, our 4th XI could only manage 160 chasing 251 down in Longford in a match interrupted by rain and incident. The 5th XI were beaten by Leinster on Monday night. Schoolboy, Patrick Guest, made an outstanding contribution to the match scoring his first 50 in senior cricket. First of many, we hope. Well done Patrick, all your work in the nets is paying off!