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NEAR FM Twenty20 Alan Murray Cup finals day at Inch, Balrothery, 14th August

Sunday was finals day of the NEAR FM Twenty20 Alan Murray Cup, staged in North County's Inch ground, a great venue for T20 given its true, reasonably fast pitches and its short boundaries.  OK, access by public transport is very, very limited, but that hardly explains the relatively poor attendance all day.  Just what do people want?  If you don't like burgers (and I don't), there's good pub grub in the Balrothey Inn.  Too expensive?  Bring a picnic.

Those who did turn up got their money's worth.  I know entrance was free, but most people were collared for a €10 raffle ticket.  The first semi final pitted Clontarf against Pembroke.  Pembroke asked Clontarf to set a score, and the 'Tarf openers Andrew Poynter and Joe Morrissey obliged.  Poyntz took successive boundaries off Barry McCarthy's first over, then JoMo launched into Paul Lawson with a four and two sixes.  In McCarthy's second over JoMo drove uppishly to mid off where Robin Russell dived forward to hang on to an excellent catch.

After Morrissey's departure for 17, Poynter was caught by Nicol for 14 and Alex Cusack bowled by Bill Whaley for 1, leaving 'Tarf at 40-3 after five overs.  Stuart Poynter and Adrian D'Arcy doubled the score in the next five overs, scampering singles, making twos whenever possible, and hitting the occasional boundary.  I can recall a pickup over drag from Poynter off Lawson and a big straight six to the road by Darce off Whaley.

After D'Arcy was very smartly stumped by Rohit Bahl off Whaley for 20, Poynter superbly caught by Russell for 26 and Bill Coghlan became another victim of Bahl's quick hands, Clontarf had slipped to 101-6 after 14 overs and in danger of folding for a modest total.  That they didn't was down to an intelligent and skillful 48* from Rod Hokin with support from Eoghan Delany and a big six at the end from Ropu Islam.  'Tarf closed on 164-7, McCarthy taking 2/21 and Whaley 1/25.

For Pembroke to chase that, everything was going to have to come off.  It didn't.  First, they had to wait twenty minutes for a heavy shower to blow through.  There was no reduction in overs, but Stephen Moreton went early on for 5, caught by D'Arcy off Islam, and while Theo Lawson and Andy Balbirnie were hardly on fire, they got to 40 in the sixth over when Balbirnie, who'd already survived a stumping chance, was very neatly and quickly stumped by Richard Forrest for 12.  At the end of the power play, the 'Broke's 40-2 compared with 'Tarf's 43-3.

But the Pembroke middle order self-destructed.  Jono Hickey was lbw to Hokin for 3, McCarthy stumped off Poynter for 2, Bahl hit a Poyntz pie straight down Rod Hokin's throat at deep square, Theo Lawson, 25, did likewise, and it was 63-6 off 10.  There was no way back.  Russell found Islam at long off, Darren Nicol used his GPS to find Stuart Poynter at deep square, Andy Leonard picked out the other Poynter sister at long on, and Pembroke were 71-9 off 14.

The futile gesture came from Paul Lawson with three sixes in his 35.  When he was caught and bowled by Eoghan Delany the innings closed on 106 from 15.5 overs.  Andrew Poynter was gifted 4/13, while Rod Hokin had to work a little harder for his 3/21.  Long batting, very good catching and good wicketkeeping had put 'Tarf into the final.  It's a measure of Forrest's progress behind the stumps that he's now preferred over Adrian D'Arcy and Stuart Poynter, both more than handy keepers.  He's been better than his father was for a couple of years now.  But how soon will it be that his off drive is followed by a shout of “Good shot, Dick!”?

The second semi final started just a few minutes behind schedule after both Railway Union and Leinster had a brief warm-up.  Anton Scholtz had won the toss for Leinster (regular skipper Craig Mallon was a spectator with his right arm in a sling) and decided to bat.  He was non-striker as Mark Jones faced up to Paddy Conliffe's first delivery.  Jonesey leaden-footedly wafted, the ball clipped the off bail.  In came the left-hander, Sonny Faizan, who will never die wondering.  A four sailed past Trent Johnston's left hand at slip and Sonny was off.

With good cricket shots he produced boundary after boundary, the power play ending on 62-1.  He reached his fifty in the eighth over, lost Scholtz in the tenth for 22, bowled by Mansoor, and was dropped on 63.  That didn't really cost, as he was caught by Conor Mullen for 73 out of 117 in the 13th over.  Joe Carroll now took over the role of principal belligerent, with Corey Edwards on the watching, strike-feeding brief.  Carroll holed out to Patrick Collins for 45 off the first ball of the nineteenth over, and 170-4 was converted to 196-4 by JP O'Dwyer's 22*.  Edwards batted intelligently for his 16*.  This was four short of Leinster's total in the 2009 final, when they had lost Jason Molins first ball.

Then, The Hills were only 23 short, an excellent effort, so how close could the powerful Railway batting lineup get?  The start was very good, Kenny Carroll's successive boundaries in the first over being followed by 644 from Tom Fisher in the second.  The score was 41 when Carroll was bowled by Will Lennon for 20.  Fisher followed for 18 in the sixth over, caught by JP off Zeeshan, and Mullen then got an inside edge onto pad and into Jonesey's buckets at backward short leg, closing the power play on 49-3.

Tim Townend likes to whack the ball, as does the guy who doesn't need naming (as announcer John Mooney told us).  After a couple of sixes, the Minister for Silly Shots, Townend, found Peter Byrne at third man, and it was 75-4 off 10, a big ask, but one to which there could be an affirmative reply with Trent Johnston and Graeme McDonnell at the crease and Mo Tariq and Paddy Conliffe still in the hutch.  TJ plundered 20 off Peter Byrne's slow left-arm, survived a stumping chance, but then Zac Curtis got it right and the big fella went for 27.

Anton Scholtz brought himself into the attack and bowled McDonnell, seemingly round his legs, for 27.  Mo Tariq pucked two sixes then was brilliantly caught by JP.  Conliffe whacked Edwards for a six, then played on for 14, and Railway ran out of steam to be all out for 147 in 17.4 overs, a very worthy effort.  One of Joe Carroll's boundary catches had the anoraks rushing for their updated laws – he'd knocked it up on the boundary, stepped over, stepped back, and then taken the catch.  It was ruled legit.  Leinster were in the final again.  If they won the toss they were bound to bat first.  They did and they did.

Mark Jones survived the first ball from Joe Morrissey and began to play confidently.  Anton Scholtz worked the ball around, as he does, and the score had got to 26 in the fourth over when Scholtz was surprised to be given out lbw.  We were getting the downdraught of a shower cloud passing to the northwest – never mind the cloud physics, while the rain was going to stop quickly it was still pretty  heavy, and new batsman Sonny Faizan gesticulated to the umpires that he thought they should all go off until the rain stopped.  The umpires declined and Faizan swished irritably at his first ball.  It passed harmlessly by to Forrest.  He also swished even more irritably at his second ball and nicked it through to Forrest.

The rain stopped and Jonesey and Joe Carroll made steady progress to 36 off five overs.  Then Jones, 23, drilled the ball to extra cover and called the single.  Stuart Poynter's shy hit the stumps with Jonesey just approaching the frame.  Corey Edwards helped Carroll to a score of 77-3 after 10 overs, a decent platform from which to get about 170, which might be enough.  But Edwards flat-batted Hokin to D'Arcy on the cover boundary, Carroll drilled a return catch to Hokin, JP O'Dwyer was lbw to a pie of a half-tracker, and Peter Byrne ran himself out to leave Leinster on 101-7 off 14 overs.

With support from Will Lennon, left-hander Zac Curtus worked hard for 36, and final score reached 154-9, at least a dozen short of a testing target.  Rod Hokin took 2/27 off his four overs and Ropu Islam 2/8.  We then had what Gus Carroll, commentating for NEAR FM, accurately described as a “sun-shower”, the lateral washings-out of a nearby shower cloud, bathing the the ground simultaneously with sun and rain.  When the rain stopped and the covers came off, the umpires reduced the match to one of 18 overs, D/L creating a winning score of 143.

Alex Cusack began proceedings with successive 4s off Edwards.  Joe Morrissey was dropped by Asif Hussain and promptly struck a six and four followed by another six.  In the fourth over, Zeeshan's second, Cusie, 22, had a wind and lobbed the ball over slip.  Jonesey turned round a dived full length forwards to take the catch.  Then the off-spinner with a cocked-wrist action (no, it's not a chuck) yorked JoMo for 19, and when Stuart Poynter was lbw to Carroll, 'Tarf had been pegged back to 47-3 from 5 overs.  They had 96 to score from 13 overs with Leinster able to deploy five boundary fielders if they wished – seven and a half an over.

Two batsmen set can do that, particularly when one of them is as good as Andrew Poynter and the other one, Adrian D'Arcy, bats the other way round.  Leinster needed a couple of wickets to put pressure on and, ideally, to get rid of the left-hander.  Through a mixture of good batting and poor bowling, they didn't do this.  Poynter was always able to hit at least one boundary an over and, eventually so did D'Arcy.  The pair got home, accelerating as Leinster realised they weren't going to win, reaching their target with fifteen balls to spare, Poynter 54* and D'Arcy 40*.

The LCU President waffled far less than he had done at the Senior Cup Final in Malahide, which was a great relief to everyone, and we all packed up and went home, the DJ, NEAR FM and I.  I got outside a bottle of Chianti and, hearing that the Red Scum had won, allowed the wife to watch some crappy flash-back movie.  I heard I had won sixth prize in the raffle – Niall O'Brien's batting gloves.  I tweeted the question “How am I going to put them on?”  Back came the reply “The Chink will give you a hand!”  He'd better put his teeth in.