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Division 1: Merrion v The Hills

It was a blustery, damp and cold weekend – I even abandoned my shorts for tracksuit bottoms – making it difficult to take notes on soggy pages and take pictures without ruining the cameras.  But some of the cricket was very interesting, and some of it quite good.

Saturday I spent in Anglesea Road watching Merrion and The Hills try to get a match in.  Mike Baumgart won the toss and asked Merrion to bat.  Max Sorensen jogged in from the Donnybrook end and Dom Joyce steered the ball to the third man boundary.  Max put in a bit more effort with the next delivery, only for Dom to tuck it off his legs for four.

A single had Dom on strike for Joseph Clinton's first over, and the first two balls again went for four.  Dom was on fire, driving straight off both front and back foot, and cutting to the point boundary.  Kade Beasley had contributed three singles in six overs before he nicked Naseer through to Darrell (Darryll?) Calder.

46-1 became 54-2 when John Anderson, having square driven Luke Clinton for four, drove the next delivery to extra cover and set off for a non-existent single.  Dom quickly called “No!”, but Anderson took his time to respond and was comfortably run out for 6.  Naz and Lukie had slowed Dom's gallop to a canter, and the mandatory power play ended on 63-2.

Tyrone Kane was giving Joyce good support, and saw him to his fifty out of 81 just after the end of the bowling power play.  He started to play a few nice drives himself, which was just as well, for Dom had gone into his shell.  Tomas Murphy had replaced Naseer from the Donnybrook end, and was proving difficult to get away.

He's a sturdy lad, and eventually got one to lift, and take the edge of Joyce's bat through to Calder – 110-3 in the 23rd over.  Rory Allwright was similarly dismissed in the same over, leaving Cillian O'Donoghue to steady the ship with Kane.  In the face of testing bowling from Murphy and the occasional good ball from Yogesh, this they did.

Three short of his fifty, Kane must have though he'd reached that milestone when he swung Yogesh to the straightish mid wicket boundary, but Sorensen made a very good catch look very easy. Damien Poder soon carved Murphy to backward point – Sorensen again, and it was 152-6 with only a dozen overs left.

Matt Petrie tried to inject a bit of aggression, and he and O'Donoghue put on 37 in nine overs before they made a hames of a single for O'Donoghue to be run out for 23.  Jeff Short was given a life early on, and in the antepenultimate over Petrie was bowled by Luke Clinton for 26.  Shortie (20*) and Patrick Tice (10*) gathered 29 more runs to make the 50 over score 227-8.

The Hills's bowling was varied – Murphy was good for his 3/22 off ten, and Naseer his usual cute self for 1/35.  Yogesh's off breaks yielded 1/46, but the brothers Clinton were expensive, and Sorensen did his shoulder (again).  Also, 23 wides were far too many.

There was heavy rain during the tea interval which relented without actually stopping, but we knew from the rainfall radar that a clearance was approaching.  We also knew that there was a band of very heavy rain behind that clearance, so although the match was reduced to one of 25 overs with a D/L target of 157 for The Hills, it was going to be a question of getting twenty overs in to get a result.

In Joyce's second over Mark Dwyer got in a tangle and skied the ball to Tice behind the stumps.  Petrie and Joyce each bowled three overs when they were replaced by Richard Keaveney and Tyrone Kane.  Baumgart, especially, got after the two young seamers mainly with cuts, and the score shot from 20-1 at the end of the 5 over power play to 44-1 after the 3 over bowling power play.

The sky to the southwest started to fill in as The Hills score approached one hundred.  The fifteenth over was a long one, a succession of wides from Keaveney punctuated by a straight one which bowled Calder for 24.  The sixteenth was the last before the rain stopped play for good, leaving Baumgart on 41*, Yogesh on 6* and the total on 103-2.

The Hills had fought their way right back into the game, and must have been favourites to win had the match been allowed to reach a conclusion.  That same fight got them an unlikely victory three weeks earlier at YMCA, and they shouldn't be written off just yet.  Merrion, too, are a useful outfit with some very promising youngsters.