BOLTS RUMBLE ON THANKS TO RUNAWAY FREIT-TRAIN

Chris de Freitas was once again the centre of attention as the Sherwin-O’Riordan Leinster Lightning Bolts notched up a second win in the 2023 Future Series.

Having won the toss, Bolt’s skipper Philippe le Roux invited Munster Heat to bat first, and after some luckless bowling early in the piece, Dylan Lues got the wickets column up and running with a direct hit run out from cover.

Olly Riley then nicked off South-African Kian Hilton, before Lues took the ball for the 19th over, with the score 57/2, by the time he’d completed it, the Heat were 59/4 and Bolts were starting to turn the screw. John McNally took a wicket before Lues rounded off his victims with the dismissal of Ryan Joyce, he finished with figures of 3/18 from 6 overs.

Riley returned to clean bowl Ehsan O’Sullivan, bringing him an excellent return of 2/10 from his 6 overs, before Amish Sidhu wrapped up the tail in comprehensive style, bowling an excellent spell of 3/3 from just 2.3 overs.

The Bolts chase started brightly, with David Vincent stroking a brace of boundaries before he didn’t quite get hold of a pull shot allowing the square leg fielder to take a simple catch. Swapnil Modgil was also dismissed for just 5, caught in the slips.

This however was where Balbriggan man de Freitas got moving, he hit a flurry of boundaries to be on 28 at the lunch interval, after which he put the foot down even more, being particularly proficient through and over the off-side.

He added 65 with John McNally, who was happy to play second fiddle throughout before he was caught at mid-on for 12, and by the time skipper le Roux was at the crease, de Freitas seemed intent on scoring every last run available, le Roux making just one of the next 22 runs as de Freitas carted his way to an unbeaten 75 from just 65 balls, featuring 13 boundaries and a match-ending maximum.