studaultrey.com

Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup, second round: Clontarf v Brigade

The Brigade bus finally made it to Castle Avenue at 11:50 a.m., but the toss was made on time at noon.  Brigade, without regular skipper Mark Simpson, won it and, thinking the pitch was very green, asked Clontarf to bat.  After the men from the Waterside had a brief warm-up, the match got underway just a few minutes late.

Johnnny Thompson came up the hill from the castle (city) end, and immediately got movement through the air and off the pitch.  From the Killester end, Ata ur-Rehman also got movement off the pitch, so Alex Cusack and Bill Coughlan were struggling to make any headway.  In the fifth over, with the score on 17, Thompson brought one back through Cusie's defence to take his leg stump.

In the next over ur-Rehman moved one back into Coghlan that took a thick edge and ballooned to short square leg.  Ryan Brace trotted round from mid wicket and dropped the dolly.  It didn't cost, because Thompson clean bowled Coghlan in his next over.  As the mandatory power play ended on 28-2, there were three very good umpiring decisions, all in the batsman's favour.

ur-Rehman was beginning to get appreciable bounce, and was very disappointed not to get a decision when Azam Ali Baig judged the ball to be going over the stumps.  At the other end, Clive Colleran wasn't interested in a Thompson shout for caught behind.  My informants, including supporters of both sides, said the ball had definitely flicked the pad flap.  Keeper Garth McKeegan was doubtless trying to make amends for dropping Hokin before he'd scored.

Another nipper-backer from ur-Rehman was doubtless missing leg, missing off, but pinging middle; however the batsman had somehow got outside the line of off stump and was doing his darndest to hit the ball – he just wasn't good enough, and the bowler again looked to the heavens as no finger was raised by Azam.

Rod Hokin had ground his way to four out of 41 when ur-Rehman finally got his rewards and hustled one onto the Aussie's stumps.  The bowling power play finished on 48-3, the final over being bowled by off spinner Trevor Britton.  Andrew Poynter and left-hander Adrian D'Arcy never got on top, but they battled to 81-3 at drinks, ur-Rehman bowling out to record 10-3-23-1, a fine spell.

Britton and Graham Moore kept things tight, and Poynter especially didn't like being tied down.  Poyntz is very good at working singles, but he wasn't being allowed to do even this as often as he wanted.  Eventually he lost patience with Moore and popped a catch to Moran to make it 86-4.  The feeling was that if Clontarf could scramble 200, it might just be enough.

D'Arcy had a bit of luck when , on 22, he edged Moore low onto the keeper's pads – Bob Taylor might have got a glove on it, but I can't think of any other keeper who would have – and Darce collected two runs.  Iftikhar Hussein was now bowling his darts from the city end, and kept D'Arcy and fellow left-hander Joe Morrissey very quiet.

In his penultimate over Moore finally bowled D'Arcy for 31 – 113-5 – Eoghan Delany joined JoMo, and the batting power play was called after 39 overs.  23 runs later, with the overs running out, Morrissey called for a run that wasn't there and was run out for 19 by a combination of Thompson's throw and Ifty's flick onto the stumps.

Matt D'Arcy tried to get on with it, but was bowled by Ifty for four.  The majority of the scoring was done by Delany, and he finished 34* out of a very disappointing 169-7 after 50 overs.  I wonder if 'Tarf wouldn't have been better served by sending in proper batsmen like Eoghan Delany and Richard Forrest ahead of long-handle specialists like JoMo and Matt.

Johnny T finished with 2/35, Moore with 2/33, Ifty 1/33 and Britton 0/36.  The bowling had been very good and the ground fielding good, but the catching wasn't up to scratch.  Had the catches been taken 'Tarf might have been rolled for as little as 100.

Chris Dougherty and David Barr came out to open the Brigade batting, and dug in for a fight.  But the home team's bowling was as powder puff as their batting had been.  Cusack looked distinctly out of rhythm in his run up and barely exceeded half pace in half a dozen overs which contained one delivery that beat the bat.

JoMo was similarly unthreatening, and wasn't even his normal parsimonious self, going for fours instead of less than threes.  The score had advanced to 55 in the 14th over, when first change Bill Coghlan used his height to get one to bounce, take the edge of Barr's bat, and was well held by Adrian D'Arcy standing up, Barr out for 20.

That was the end of the good news for Clontarf as Iftikhar Hussain joined the left-handed Dougherty and immediately started working his singles and twos.  Dougherty is undoubtedly a talented bat, but he didn't keep the scoreboard moving sufficiently, preferring to wait for the bad ball and put it away.  Had Clontarf not bowled so many bad balls and had the asking rate not been less than three and a half, he might have landed his team in trouble.

It may seem as if I'm being pernikity, but the major failing of the national side is the too frequent inabilty to score enough runs quickly enough.  The batsmen who replace the present generation must be able to address this problem.  Paul Stirling certainly can, but who else?  However, I digress.

As the bowling got worse, the runs came easily.  Even so, 93-1 at drinks was only a dozen ahead of Clontarf's equivalent score.  Andrew Poynter bowled a decent spell of off breaks, and induced Ifty, on 21, to lob a catch to mid wicket, where Rod Hokin, of all people, dropped the mother of all dollies.

Dougherty reached 50 out of 139 in the 35th over, and Ifty snuck to 51* before his mate crashed Poynter through the covers for the winning hit to end up on 68* out of 173-1 in 40.3 overs.  What is it with Clontarf and the Irish Senior Cup?  They and North County have dominated Leinster club cricket this century.  County have won it five times; I can't remember Clontarf even making a semi final.