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LHW Senior Cup semi final: Rush v North County

It was a bright day in Rush on Saturday with a northwesterly breeze.  There were a few showers about, but only one threatened us: it slipped by to the north and play was uninterrupted.  North County won the toss in this LHW Senior Cup semi final and decided to bat and, knowing that Rush would try to chase any score they set, would have been aiming for a minimum of 280.

Left-handers Conor Armstrong and Mossie Sheil made sedate progress against Sadaat Gull and Amir Raza, who both got plenty of movement off the pitch, to be 24-0 after ten overs.  Scoring accelerated when Lee Metcalfe came into the attack – his good balls were good, but there were too many bad balls, and 44 runs came from the next five overs.

Eoghan Conway bowled a decent spell of left-arm over from the town end, and had Shiel caught behind for 34 in the 19th over.  Greg Hay goes for it from ball one, and got off the mark with a top edge.  A couple of biffs later he was gone for 13, caught by Jansen off Conway, and one run later Armstrong (32) was caught at slip by Shahid off Amir to make it 97-3 in the 24th over.

County, missing Mooney and the injured Garry, couldn't afford to lose any more quick wickets, so Coughlan dug in while Lawrence did most of the scoring.  Shahid was bowling his slow stuff and getting away with murder from the Loughshinney end because of the batsmen's relative caution, while Jansen was mixing up his offies and little seamers from the other end and bowling well.

When the pair had added sixty, in the 40th over Shahid got one to bounce on Coughlan (20), the ball looped up off the glove in front of the batting crease, and Sheehan dived a long way forward to claim a very good catch.  Josh Reeves was quickly into his stride, and the two left-handers took the game to the Rush bowlers.

Lawrence reached his fifty in the 44th over and then was becalmed, scoring only ten more in the next seven overs.  He clipped a ball from Jansen through straightish mid wicket where Conway acrobatically threw himself high to his right to stop the boundary.  That's what Richie and I thought, anyway, but on appeal Del Boy McGeehan gave him out caught after consulting with Clive Colleran – neither umpire thought it was a bump ball.

There were mutterings galore from the North County connections when at 219-5 Daniel Nolan and not Eddie  Richardson came in to bat, and these mutterings grew as Nolan took a couple of overs to get his bearings.  Then he opened his shoulders and struck three fours and two sixes to score 34 in 27 balls.  He and Reeves (67) were out in the penultimate over with the score on 295.

Now Eddie Richardson did come in to score 26* off seven deliveries and take the 60 over score to 323-7, and wrecking Gull's figures.  Metcalfe apart, all the Rush bowlers kept reasonable control, even Shahid, who had to bowl 11 overs in the absence of Dan van Zyl.

Shane Murphy and Eddie Richardson bowled aggressively to Sean Monks and Eoghan Conway, but the Rush openers picked off the occasional bad ball to take 47 off the first ten overs.  Then Richardson had Monks caught behing by Casey for 12, and Jansen put down roots at number three.  Conway was dropped by Hay but then bowled by Conor Shiel for 24 to make it 62-2.

Saadat Gull was dropped on 1, hit two fours and then caught off Shiel for 9.  Shahid got a good one from Reeves that he nicked to Armstrong at second slip, Niall Mullen missed a Reeves straight one, and after scoring four singles in seven overs Jansen too was bowled by Reeves.  80-6 became 91-7 when Sheehan took on Dan Nolan's arm and lost, but Alan Butterly and Jamie Farrell batted definantly for a while.

Butsy was dropped on 15, got to 27 and then was very lbw to Richardson.  Amir Iqbal was stumped off Adam Coughlan, but Lee Metcalfe helped Farrell take the score to 140, when Farrell was bowled by Coughlan for 18.  Rush were bowled out for 140 in 31.3 overs, Reeves taking 3/24.

The Russians missed Dan van Man far more than County missed John Boy Mooney, but they have done well this season on very meagre resources, and are on the verge of getting some of their youngsters playing at Senior standard.  The Kenure catering was, as ever, top notch and generous, and I really enjoyed being serenaded all afternoon by a goldfinch from his perch on top of the netting.