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Lewis Hohn Williams Senior Cup, second round: Merrion v Leinster

The key to this LHW Senior Cup match would appear to lie in the relative sucess of the two batting line-ups – Will Lennon, down to bat at 10 for Leinster, has several Senior fifties, and Patrick Tice, the Merrion equivalent, is a very promising wicketkeeper/batsman.  But hang on, Leinster are playing four spinners, three of whom can also bat a bit – will that make a difference?

Craig Mallon won the toss for Leinster and decided to bat.  He opened the innings himself with Mark Jones, and Jonesey crashed Matt Petrie's third ball past Jeff Short's right ear for four through gully.  The bowling from Petrie and Dom Joyce was good apart from too many wides, and by Petrie's fourth over only a single apiece and a boundary from Jonesey had been added.

Then Mark carved another Petrie delivery past Jeff's left ear, but Shortie, corrie-fisted as he is, held on to a very good catch.  In the same over the similarly sinistral Zac Curtis good a good one from Petrie and was lbw.  Anton Scholtz decided it was Tennyson time, the Charge of the Light Brigade, two fours and a big edge to Patrick Tice off Dom Joyce.

George Dockrell came in at five, who although a bowling sensation for Ireland, is a handy bat.  He and his skipper slowly advanced the score, and then Dockers stroked Alex Chetkovich's first two balls for four, the earlier a controlled thick edge through gully, the later a beautiful drive through cover off the back foot.

The score had reached 66 when Dockrell, 22, played doen the Picadilly Line to Tyrone Kane.  Unfortunately the ball was on the Bakerloo Line, and the stumps got in its way.  Joe Carroll had been promoted to six after his match-winning 60* from nine last week, and did a great impersonation of a number nine before the players left the field for a shower which became lunch.

Merrion down the years has always attracted beautiful young women, and two star exhibits now served a lovely repast.  The rain took a while to relent, and minutes were lost.  The sky didn't look great to me, and I didn't take the cameras back out of the boot of the car.

Joe Carroll hit the first ball after the resumption at Damien Poder's shaven head at mid off, and Podes dropped it.  It didn't matter, because a boundary later Carroll was riddled by Chetkovich.  Corie Edwards edged a ball down the leg side through Tice's gloves to the boundary (I don't know if it pitched first) and then was on the District Line to Kane's delivery on the Metropolitan Line.

During all this excitement Craig Mallon had reached double figues in the 21st over, and he took fresh guard for the next ten.  In strode JP O'Dwyer with the bends at number eight (OK, OK, I know you get the bends when you rise too quickly, but there has to be an equivalent image for nosebleed when batting too high).

A boundary, a nick, and JP was history, 95-7 in the 32nd over.  Peter Byrne looked good, played a couple of cracking drives, and helped his skipper add 37 runs in the next eight overs.  If Leinster could get to 200 they might just have a sniff.  By this time Merrion had resorted to the pieman, Jeff Short, and after four wides he bowled his doosra, the straight one, which hit Byrne on the ankle plumb in front and he had to go for 22.

Will Lennon had added another 32 with Mallon, when the skipper, now top-scorer above Ernie Extras on 38 in the fiftieth over, got a full toss from Poder.  He drilled it unerringly into Shortie's grateful mits on the mid wicket boundary – Jeff didn't have to move or think, things that might normally perplex him (I'm joking, Shortie, I really am).

What Zeeshan had to do at number 11 was survive, and let Lennon take his runs.  This involves taking singles, a concept not well understood in South Asia.  Sure enough, on the fourth ball of the 51st over, Will said yes, Zeeshan said nothing, and Will was run out for 13.

164 all out in 50.4 overs is not a winning score, and Petrie (2/28), Chetkovich (2/32) and Kane (2/27) could be well pleased with their efforts.  It looked even less of a winning score when Corie Edwards bowled two sets of five wides in his first over

Will Lennon was considerably less wayward in his first over, and induced a nick from Joyce via his pads though to Curtis benhind the stumps.  Beasley was joined by Anderson, and the pair took the score to 57-1 in the 14th over when Beasley was well caught by Edwards diving forward at square leg  for 15 off Lennon's bowling.

Tyrone Kane joined his skipper and the two waited for the bad balls to cruise Merrion to victory.  The Leinster seamers were bowling well enough, but there was a four-ball too often to take the score to 101-2 off 24 overs.  Then the first of Leinster's quartet of spinners was invited to the party by the skipper.

It didn't augur well as seven runs came off Dockrell's first over, and Edwards leaked more runs off the 26th over.  Dockers then bowled a maiden, and Anton Scholtz was asked to bowl his straight-breaks from the Donnybrook end.  He immediately bowled Kane for 23 to make it 115-3 in the 28th over.

Next over Anderson nicked Dockrell to Curtis for 49 and a couple of balls later Watkins was smartly stumped by Curtis to make it 115-5 and tea.  The sandwiches and fancies disappeared, and Leinster quickly had their case advanced when Scholtz bowled Rory Allwright without any addition to the score.

Matt Petrie and Damien Poder, the pair that fashioned an unlikely victory in the first round of this competition at Pembroke, got their heads down and in eight overs added only six runs before Poder was lbw to Scholz.  Amid more poking, skipper Anderson appeared with an unwanted drink to inform his batsmen that, with a dirty black cloud approaching, they were behind on D/L.

Petrie whacked a straight four off Dockrell, singles were scampered, and the score reached 132-7 off 43.1 overs when heavy rain drove the players off the field.  The tarpaulin was quickly in place, my cameras were safely stowed in the boot of the car, and we all waited for the shower to pass.

But each shower was followed by by another, the ground got wetter, and overs began to be lost.  Eventually there was a lull and it looked as though there would be three overs after the outstanding five balls for Merrion to score a further eighteen runs to win.

But when the process of removing the tarpaulin began, groundsman Gus Fleming noticed two holes on a yorker length outside a right-hander's off stump at the Donnybrook end, apparently where somebody wearing spikes had stood.  When the tarp came off a soggy patch was revealed which the waterhog couldn't amerliorate.

Umpires John Andrews and Nigel Parnell had no option but to pull the plug, which satisfied no-one because the D/L par score for 43.1 overs with seven wickets down chasing a total of 164 in 60 overs is 132.  Match tied; replay in Rathmines tba; and it's all covered in the regulations!

While Will Lennon recorded figures of 8-3-29-2 (ten of those off his last over), the other two seamers' seventeen overs went wicketless for 74 runs – they didn't bowl badly, but were relatively expensive.  Dockrell's figures were 10-5-17-2, and Scholtz's 8.1-3-6-3.

With two other spinners unused, why did Mallon wait so long before introducing them?  Anglesea Road has very short straight boundaries, so I can understand why he waited until the end of the eighteen over power play.  Carroll was in the middle of a good spell from the Ballsbridge end, so perhaps delay Dockrell to over 21, but surely not to over 25!

That's the beauty of cricket – so much to talk about, so much time to do it in, so many possibilities to be wise after the event.  Nothing is resolved and then we go out and do it all again.