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Railway Union v YMCA: Division 1 match played at Park Anenue on Sunday 5th September

On Sunday I watched the other Irish Senior Cup finalists, Railway Union, at home to YMCA. If YM didn't win the match they would be relegated, and they were without professional James Parkinson and experienced all-rounder Paul Beacroft. Railway, too, were short of their Irish duo, Trent Johnston and Kevin O'Brien, and vice-skipper Conor Mullen, so Tom Fisher captained the depleted siding of Shunters.

There was rain about, so Reinhardt Strydom asked Railway to set a score, knowing that Duckworth/Lewis was very likely to determine exactly what that score was. He opened the bowling himself with Sean McAuley, and four tidy overs yielded just seven runs on a very slow pitch.

In Strydom's third over he hustled an inswinger through to Jem Shortt past Kenny Carroll. There was a noise, but no appeal from Rainy and a strangled groan from Shortt. Alan Lewis and Angus Dunlop were deep in conversation at first and second slip, belatedly made the non-appeal into something more convincing and were rewarded with the raised digit of McGeehan Senior.

McGeehan Junior looked on from square leg and McGeehan Minor (Mynah?) recorded the catch behind in YMCA's book. Graeme McDonnell was dropped by Gussie at slip off Strydom when on three, but Tanya, the Railway scorer, told McGeehan Minor not to worry because he's always out for four when she scores.

Next over McDonnell holed out to Simon Wilson Moore (henceforth SWM) at mid off for the predicted four. 12-2 became 35-2 at the end of 15 overs, with Fisher on 18 having been dropped at slip by poor old Gussie when 12. Again, Gussie's miss didn't cost as Fisher hit a return catch to Robert Garth.

Paddy Conliffe came and went for one, caught behind off SWM, and the Junior Minister for Silly Shots, Dhruv Kapoor, came in and played one of the most bizarre cameos I've ever seen. On three he swung Garth high to long leg where Lee Cole dropped the catch and conceded a single. On four he blazed Garth through the outstretched fingers of Carl Hosford at cover to the boundary.

Now on eight, he lobbed a catch toward mid on, but Gussie was in denial, unable to waddle forward sufficiently quickly to take the catch or to run the batsman out. The next run didn't involve a chance, and having progressed to ten he heaved Garth to Cole again and was dropped again, this time conceding two runs.

Kapoor, now on 12-4, wafted SWM into the covers where Cole took a decent catch. Mo Tariq had watched this drama quietly and competently getting himself to 21 out of 64. He lofted a Garth half-tracker toward deep mid wicket, where Hosford raced in, threw himself forward and took a magnificent catch.

Sam Farthing was well taken by Lewie at slip off Garth to make it 72-7, and the Minister himself, overwhelmed by the performance of his apprentice, batted properly for 12, when he got a good one from McAuley that he could only nick to Shortt.

Saad Ullah and Carlo Rendell played carefully to 101-8 off 36 overs, when the mizzle turned to drizzle and the umpires took the players off. The umps then suggested an early tea so they could stop counting down the overs when the permitted half hour was up, but this was refused by YM, and play eventually resumed, still with no loss of overs.

Alan Lewis, stranded on 492 Senior wickets for a long time now, tried his off-breaks from the St. John's Road end, and should have had Saad caught behind for 13, but the nick didn't stick in the gloves. But he did get to 493 when he trapped Rendell lbw for 7. Greg Lambert stayed with Saad until, after 45.1 overs, the rain got too heavy and tea was taken on 122-9.

The rain prevented a prompt restart, and when play resumed it was now a 49-over match. The batsmen chanced their arm, the ball was difficult to grip, another catch went down off Lewie, a tough one to Jack Tector, and Rainy's last two overs went for thirty as Railway reached 158-9, Saad on 34* and Lambo on 28*.

McAuley took 2/18, SWM 2/25, Garth 3/20 off 7 and Lewis 1/12 off 6. YMCA now had to force a win to have a chance to stay in Division 1, with the weather closing in. The D/L par score came out at 157, meaning 158 to win. Alan Lewis and Jem Shortt went for it from the start, and while Saad kept a good line and length, Carlo Rendell was having great difficulty from the Sandymount end.

He had conceded 36 runs when he had Lewis caught by Townend for 27 out of 47 off the last ball of his third over. Kapoor had a go and fared even worse, conceding 30 off two overs. The light drizzle had now got much heavier – I was sitting in the car and was having to use my wipers.

Tom Fisher appeared to complain to the umpires, but play went on for 28 more balls, Saad picking up Shortt for 41, well caught by Farthing, and Hosford lbw for 13. It was 96-3 when play was halted, YMCA well ahead on D/L.

After the thick end of an hour and a half the rain stopped, and the umpires decided that play could resume, but that it was now a 21-over match. When the information was fed into the D/L software it declared that YMCA had won by 42 runs and refused to print out a par score sheet!

But LCU Senior regulations state that there must be 20 overs bowled in the second innings for D/L to come into play. This is perfectly reasonable, because it allows the fielding side to take wickets as well as the batting side to score runs.

So both teams had to take the field without any clue what the target score was because the software wouldn't tell them. I think this must be known as a variation on D/L, perhaps the Vera Duckworth and Lewis Hamilton method.

Anyway, Reinhardt Strydom and Gus Dunlop batted out to the end of 21 overs, Rainy having to be restrained from trying to hit the cover off the ball, and Gussie playing two off drives from the memory bank. Rainy got 9*, Gussie 11* out of 109-3. Midway through the 21st over the heavens opened and it hasn't stopped raining since.  The over was completed and everybody made for the dry.  Saad's figures were a very respectable 2/23 off eight.

Did the umpires get it right? I don't know, in part because I never went out to the middle. I thought they could have come in after ten overs instead of 14.4, which might have resulted in 20 overs not being bowled. Given that D/L would still have awarded the match to YMCA, the result would doubtless have ended up in the committee room!

Whatever about the umpires possibly getting it wrong (and I'm not saying they did), you can guarantee that an LCU committee would certainly get it horribly wrong. Dublin University would have had a good chance of getting promoted as Leinster, YMCA and Malahide all got relegated!