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Near FM Twenty20 Alan Murray Cup finals played at Phoenix on Saturday 14th August

To play three Twenty20 matches on the one day successfully, you need several ingredients skilfully combined: good weather; a bright evening; a pitch that lasts; and good organisation of the p/a, the boundary/wicket jingles, the catering and the drinks.  Phoenix on Saturday had the lot.

The Near FM Alan Murray Cup Twenty20 finals for 2010 got underway with the semi final clash of the big beasts of Railway Union and North County.  Railway won the toss, had a hit and were on the back foot straight away as Tom Fisher was lbw to Jimmy Boyland.

Like all left-handers facing right-arm over the wicket bowlers, he knows that a ball hitting middle is quite likely to have pitched outside leg, reducing the probability of being lbw unless the ball does something or the batsman misjudges.

I don't know whether Tom's reluctance to shuffle off the mortal coil of the Phoenix pitch was because he didn't think the ball had done anything or because he regretted his misjudgement.  Or was he considering another source of human error?  There was no excuse for the demise of Kevin O'Brien and Conor Mullen.

Each lofted Mooney into the safe hands of Ciaran Garry on the square leg fence, the only guy out there – there was nobody thirty yards to his left or right, nor anybody thirty yards behind him.  (It was a bit early for canoodling couples in the long grass.)

Kenny Carroll led the recovery from 20-3 off 4, losing Graeme McDonnell for 12 on the way, but he fell for 32 and when Tim Townend departed for a typically hit and miss 27, the required strong finish had to come from Mo Tariq, Saad Ullah and Paddy Conliffe.  It didn't materialise.

Only 15 runs were added after the end of over 16, and Railway were bowled out for 131 in 19.2 overs.  All the County bowling figures were respectable, John Mooney (3/12) and Jimmy Boyland (3/22) especially so.

County opened with Conor Armstrong and Brian Shields, and the pair hustled their way with drives into the thirties.  I hope Shieldsy had bought a few lottery tickets that morning.  He was dropped off a not-too-difficult caught and bowled chance by Saad Ullah, and then called a stupid single to point.

Kenny Carroll threw down the stumps with Shieldsy short of the line, but when everybody turned to square leg for the expected raised finger they saw umpire Azam Ali Baig flat on the ground next to a collapsed Graeme McDonnell.  Graeme had collided with the umpire as he moved to back up Kenny's throw.

Azam couldn't give a decision - he hadn't seen it.  It wasn't Clive Colleran's decision to give at the bowler's end, even if he had seen it, and it was certainly nothing to do with Rod Molins, standing on the boundary waiting to umpire the next match, even if he had been watching, which he hadn't.

Shieldsy could always walk, of course.  He didn't.  In fact, he took a second run for an overthrow after the ball ricocheted from the stumps.  He went on to make 17 and his partner 13 before they gave way to John Mooney and Andre Botha.  The two left-handers made the game safe with some very high quality batting.

Boatsy made 31, a nice little outing after a long injury lay-off, John Boy 35, leaving Ciaran Garry (20*) to finish things off with a sixth wicket win in the 19th over.  After the battle of the big beasts, how would the minnows of Phoenix and Malahide shape up to each other?

Phoenix won the toss and opened with the tall but slim Ben Larkin and the equally tall but not so slim David Langford Smith.  Lanky went back to Steve Smith's little slow left-arm and was bowled.  The far from minnow-like Conor Kelly made 12, but as half-way approached Phoenix were still less than fifty – somebody had to do something.

Ben Larkin tried, but was out for 32.  Skipper Corie Dickeson tried to martial his lower orders, but one hundred wasn't reached until the seventeenth over.  Dickeson made 27, Graham Flanagan 17, but 117 was as far as they got, all out in the final over.

Of the Malahide bowlers, only Adam Coughlan (2/41) suffered – McDonald (2/19), Smith (2/21), Saville (2/20) and Riches (1/15) were on the spot.  Phoenix got a lift when Nick Turner fell first ball to a fine catch by Larkin.

The joy wasn't sustained as Reece McDonald scored 31 to take Malahide to 66-2 off 8 overs.  Johnny Pryor was indulging in his favoured leg-side hits, and made 33.  When he was out only twenty-odd were required off eight overs, but Adam Coughlan took an age to get to the crease, and the umpires penalised Malahide when he exceeded his allowed minute.

Initially the penalty was set at six runs, but third umpire Azam Ali Baig corrected that to ten after somebody checked the £/€ exchange rate on their iPhone.  So the Village now needed 128 to win, and Ryan Sheedy, Callum Riches and Coughlan were shot out to leave them 109-6 off 16.  Phoenix were in with a sniff!

They racked up the pressure with noisy appeals, but as the appeals grew ever more noisy and verging on the ridiculous, Fintan McAllister (30*) and Andy Smith (7*) saw them home by four wickets with two balls to spare.

It had been a terrific fight-back by Phoenix, spurred by tight leg spin from Matt Lunson (1/18) and a return to form from Rory Flanagan's medium pace (2/17), but their batting had let them down, and to expect a reprieve from bad umpiring for their own incompetence was, let's say, misguided.

Dara Armstrong won the toss and sent out “the Doctor”, Conor Armstrong, and Shieldsy to give them a good start.  Shields was out for 13 as County clattered along at nine an over.  John Mooney pinged a couple of fours before pulling the ball towards the pavilion, where Andy Smith spilled the catch over the boundary.

Armstrong went for 27, but Mooney and Ciaran Garry carried merrily on.  The scoring rate of nines fell to eights, but was still over sevens when Mooney was out for 41 and then Garry for 29.  County added only eighteen runs in the last four overs, twelve of them to Eddie Richardson, to finish on 133-8, a good score on a wearing pitch, but not out of sight.

The Malahide bowling was again steady after the early onslaught – McDonald 3/24, Smith 2/27, Saville 1/27, Coughlan 1/29 and Riches 1/23.  The Village needed a good start and then to build on it.  In the immortal words of Del Boy, “No way, Pedro.”

They started at eights, OK, but in the absence of the Minister for Silly Shots, Tim Townend, who didn't hang around after the Wheeltappers' demise, Reece McDonald (7), Nick Turner (11) and John Pryor (14) all made effective Ministers of State and were back in the hutch after four overs.

The score then ground to 49-5 at half-way.  Fintan McAllister had fought his way to seventeen, but had seemingly been suffering from blurred vision since the second part of the County innings, when he had started first to take off the bails and appeal for stumpings when the batsman hadn't moved a muscle, later destroying the stumps in the hope that that would impress the umpire more.

After he was sent on his way to Specsavers there was a brief Village revival led by Adam Coughlan (27) at the expense, mainly, of Mossie Shiel.  Callum Riches made 14 and Pete Saville 9 before Malahide were bowled out for 104 in 18.2 overs.

John Mooney finished with 3/20, Richie Lawrence 3/11 and Jimmy Boyland 2/26, while Jonno Andrews had slipped in four overs of off spin for ten runs.  As the sun sank and the wind became ever chillier, the speeches were made and County given the Alan Murray Cup.

The festivities began while I packed up, slipped away, drove home and got outside a bottle of merlot as I downloaded the photographs Rob O'Connor had taken on my camera – he's good!  Then I sat down in front of Match of the Day and fell asleep.  Will I see out the winter?