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Division 1: YMCA v North County

I drove to Rush on Saturday morning, to see the visit of Leinster, but found that play was highly unlikely because of a soggy square – the tarpaulin had blown off – so I turned round and headed back through the Port Tunnel to Sandymount.  I chose to end up in Claremont Road, where North County had won the toss and decided to bat.  The YMCA skipper Reinhardt Strydom told me he would have fielded, so everybody was happy.

I was delighted to see the 88 year young Tom Murphy there with his grandson Shane, John's son, born and brought up in South Africa.  I told Shane that his dad never got me out but his granddad always did!  Mossie Shiel and Conor Armstrong put on 38 during the mandatory power play against the bowling of Strydom and Ahmed without any difficulty.

Sameer Dutt replaced Strydom and immediately bowled Shiel for 16.  In the last over of the bowling power play Armstrong tried to force a Dutt delivery that wasn't as short and wide as the shot required, and lobbed a catch to Ahmed.  Armstrong had made 38 fluent runs out of 64.

Adam Coughlan joined Greg Hay, and the pair added only ten runs in the next five overs, but began to accelerate as drinks approached.  After Sameer's off breaks had been replaced by the offies of senior citizen Alan Lewis for a couple of overs, a third off spinner, young Jack Tector, was introduced and right well he bowled.

Hay, on 25, had become becalmed, and miscued him over mid off, where Lewie, running back, failed to get a hand to a ball he would have pouched in his pomp.  Robert Garth was getting plenty of life from the Claremont Road end, and whistled one past Hay's chin.  The Lewis miss cost only one run as Hay was caught and bowled by Garthy to make the score 116-3.

John Mooney had made only four when he swung Tector high to the mid on boundary.  Andrew Mowatt did the hard part well, getting to the ball, but the easier part poorly as he dropped the catch.  Coughlan was growing more confident as he gathered legside and offside boundaries square of the wicket, but had a let-off on 32 when dropped by McCoy behind the stumps.

In the 37th over Tector finally got his reward when he trapped Coghlan lbw for 44 with the total on 157.  The remaining twelve overs saw 147 more runs added as Ciaran Garry joined John Boy to murder the bowling with super shots as the fielding became more and more ragged under the pressure.

The batting power play was called after 41 overs with the score on 196.  Strydom immediately brought himself back to bowl three of the five overs, during which he conceded 16 runs.  But the other two overs, the first bowled by Tector, the second by Dutt, yielded 36 runs, and at 248-4 off 46 overs, County were disappearing over the horizon.

Mooney had reached fifty in the 43rd over out of 216, and with a strong finish Garry got to his half century out of 276 in the penultimate over.  John Boy reached his ton with a huge six in the last over and finished on 102*, with Mini Garry 55* out of a total of 304-4.

Rainy Strydom was going to have to repeat his 150 of the previous Saturday, and somebody else was going to have to go big as well.  It wasn't to be.  Rainy tried to pull Mooney and found only Josh Reeves, then Sameer played a couple of cracking shots before cutting Mooney to Eddie Richardson at point.  13-2 in the fourth over, and game all but over.

Alan Lewis and Carl Hosford batted well, though Hos was dropped on 8 by Conor Shiel – a dolly – and Lewie looked in great nick with tucks off his legs and square forces off the back foot.  He'd got to 34 out of 75 when he missed a Conor Shiel half-volley in front of middle stump, and up went Rodney Smythe's finger.

Lewie departed, muttering about how far he was down the track, and muttered only slightly more quietly after I showed him my photograph of the event.  Robert Garth went in at five, but lost Hosford four overs later, caught and bowled by Lawrence for 29.  Steven Walsh hung around for a bit until undone by Coughlan's off breaks.

Ahmed and Garthy had a “yes, no, wait, sorry” episode which resulted in Shammy's departure for no score, Mucker McCoy and Mowatt couldn't deal with Coughlan, and it was 124-8.  Yacub Ali made 9 before leaving his ground in a failed attempt to slog Coughlan, then Garth was caught by Mooney off Mossie Shiel's second ball for 41.

YMCA, 149 all out off 35.2 overs, maintained their league record of losing to every northside club and beating every southside one.  If they maintain that, they won't be relegated!  Coughlan finished with 4/52 and County are back on track to retain their league title, particularly the way the other results went.