There is a reason that cricket is the best sport in the world. The match between Donemana and Merrion demonstrates why. The game started well for Merrion and with Dom Joyce [72] and Jack Carty [72] putting together an opening partnership of 144, Merrion were well in control. A flurry of wickets and at 188/5 with overs running out, Donemana would have felt that they had weathered the initial storm and were in a good position to hold Merrion to an average score. But that was without an explosion of hitting in the final overs as John Anderson [72] and Patrick Tice brought the total up to 275. The only consolation for the hosts was that a good final over would ensure that the score was kept below 300. But 295/7 was still a daunting chase.
And it must have seemed even harder when Donemana fell to 34/3. Hanging on by their finger nails they managed to bring the score up to 85 before losing their fourth wicket but with approaching half the overs gone, four wickets lost and 200 runs still needed the game seemed to have slipped from their grasp. And then the match turned, as a partnership between Andy McBrine [96] and Gary McClintock [85] wrestled the game back in their favour. Indeed at 250/4 with 8 overs remaining a home win seems more than just on the cards - it was very probable. But it wasn’t all over and when the two established batsmen fell to Carty and Poonish Mehta there was just a glimmer of hope for the visitors. For the next half an hour the match swung back and forth and only gradually settled in favour of Merrion as the return of the opening bowlers [Mehta and Tyrone Kane] made runs difficult to come by and, more important, saw the regular fall of wickets.
But the game still had one more dramatic twist. With the final over to be bowled by Kane and the last pair at the wicket there were 12 runs needed. Still anyones game but surely Merrion would not let it slip now. But that was before an intervention by the umpires that resulted in 6 runs being added to the Donemana total for a slow over rate. Six runs needed - now that was certainly gettable. The first five balls played out with four runs scored. So everything - just short of six hundred runs scored and over seven hours of play - came down to one ball. And the last wicket falls - bowled by Kane.
The bowling figures are worth a mention with Kane taking 3/31, Mehta 3/46 and Carty 2/37 off their ten overs each. But it is not about the statistics. Just following the game by text message the pressure was immense. Every ball followed by an anxious crowd at Anglesea Road and through WhatsApp much wider afield. For anyone watching live - the nerves must have been shredded long before the end of play. And that is why there is nothing like a game of cricket.
And the Donemana / Merrion match wasn’t the only exciting one on offer. In Dublin a tremendous fight back by Muckamore saw them recover from 44/6 to chase down the Malahide total of 208/6 and win by one wicket. At the same time down at the Mardyke Cork County fell four runs short chasing a Strabane total of 222/8. Again the match went to the last over. At 118/1 Cork County were well on top but three run outs [the first three names in the batting order] did not help their cause. In this case 5 runs were needed in the 50th but only one was scored before the last wicket fell.
After all this excitement it seems almost mundane to mention that Balbriggan had an excellent nine wicket win over Armagh chasing a total of 165 [Connor Fletcher 88*]. Also on the road Leinster had a comfortable seven wicket win over Eglington chasing down 218 [half centuries for George Dockrell and Joe Carroll]. The only travelling team from Leinster to lose in the ISC were North County who fell short by 107 runs to CIYMS.
In Dublin, Phoenix beat Ardmore by six wickets chasing 190, YMCA won by seven wickets v Cork Harlequins [Simi Singh 92 off 56 balls] and Clontarf won easily. Having set Brigade a score of 263/7 [Pienaar 92 and Azmat 50] they came out on top by 102 runs.