Review of Divisions 3 & 4, weekend 27th - 28th August
There were two matches in Division 3 last weekend, both on Sunday. At Balbriggan, the home team easily beat relegated Oakhill and moved closer to second-placed Dublin University. The Co. Wicklow side could make only 131 in 42 overs, Angus Hancock top-scoring with 37, a further 25 coming from Brosnan. Anwar took 3/32, and Paddy Martin mopped up the bunnies with a spell of 4/6. Barry Archer then hit 13 fours and a six in an unbeaten 84 too see his side home by 8 wickets, Roger Kear filling in the number three slot, recently vacated by Gavin Morgan, with 21. Balbriggan now need 46 points from their final two games against Leinster 2 and Civil Service to finish second and gain promotion to Division 2.
Down the coast at Castle Avenue, Clontarf 2 hosted Malahide 2. The Villagers were asked to bat, and must have been reasonably pleased with a 50 over total of 250-8, with contributions from most batsmen – P Unregistered (!) 26, Sirah Kiran 37, Adam Shehabeddin 34, Rob Weir 34, Glenn Kirwan 22 all made in excess of twenty. For 'Tarf, Mark Collier took 3/43. That total was put in context when Clontarf romped home with only two wickets down in the 36th over, with 71* from Richie Reid, 39 from Ross Maybury and 91 from Vijay Gopal. That result moves Clontarf closer to safety and Malahide looking over the abyss and hoping that Civil Service implode.
There were four matches in Division 4, one on Saturday and three on Sunday. The Saturday game was at The Maws, where Malahide 3 were the visitors to North Kildare. Malahide won the toss and spent 48 and a half overs accumulating 129. A 56-ball 14 from Smith and a 51-ball 13 from Shoebridge must have been very edifying. Top-scorer was Ernie Extras with 34. Principal beneficiary of this display was Nigel Pyne, with 10-3-16-3. Rain reduced North Kildare's target to 87 in 28 overs, of which they needed only 19.3, Neavyn making 23 and M Singh 32* in a eight wicket victory.
North Kildare completed their fixtures with a visit to the Phoenix Park on Sunday. Phoenix 2 were at one stage 186-4 (Masud Ahmed 16; Battan 20; Tom Anders 38). Then Naik was dismissed for 32, and Nazir followed soon after for 72. A shower then limited the innings to 47 overs, and Phoenix were 229 all out in 46.4 overs. Tom Satchwell took 3/33, Nigel Pyne 3/36 and Ian Walshe 3/30. D/L recalculated North Kildare's target as 240, and a fighting display saw the Kilcock men get home with two wickets and eleven balls to spare. Neavyn scored 25, Walshe 41, Phipps 24, Satchwell 41, Vorster 32* and run-a-ball contributions at the death from Pyne and Mac Niocall. For Phoenix, only off-spinners Masud Ahmed and Ryan Gallagher kept the scoring in check.
Those two wins lifted North Kildare into sixth place above Laois, who lost a tight match to Merrion 2 at Portlaoise RFC. Laois won the toss, batted, and got to 144-4 (Hur 21, Meraj 47), but then M Auret was out for 43, and Rex Walsh went through the rest of the home side, finishing with 5/33. Sanjay Saharan took 3/31 as the innings closed on 184 in 45.1 overs. I'm told that Rex is a proper bowler, not like his dad, who belongs to the Vinny Savino school of non-spinning off-break bowlers. Vinny and Jim served up pie after pie and gots buckets of wickets as fools like me hit them straight down the fielders' throats. Robbie Stanton (32) and Chris Allwright (52) gave Merrion a great start, but it needed a relatively restrained 46* from Alan Parkinson to see Merrion home by three wickets as Johnny Yasin took 4/33.
Merrion's win lifted them into the second promotion spot, courtesy of YMCA 2's thrashing of Railway Union 2 at Claremont Road. Railway stuck YM in and had them at 62-4 (Ahmed 22) when David Streek joined Sean Mcauley. 99 runs later Mcauley was lbw for 44. Streeky followed soon after for 57 as YMCA folded to 192 all out in 42.4 overs. For Railway, Tim Townend took 4/47 and MD Ghavre 4/35. Railway opener Hafiz went for a duck, then Andy O'Neill (11), Mark Ingram (28) and Townend (18) got the Shunters to 66-2. The last seven men each made ducks as Railway were all out for 69 in 14.4 overs! Jehangir took 5/9 and Yaqoob Ali 3/2. Railway have an outstanding fixture against doomed Malahide 3 to regain their promotion slot, but YMCA 2 and Merrion 2 might take things out of their control.