Harry Tector in fine form this season for YMCA.
Is this the week that the Premier League begins to take shape. With eight matches scheduled over the weekend [and the weather set fair] the table could look very different by Monday evening. Today, entirely down to the way the schedule worked out, sees the four teams with wins already under their belt take on the four that haven’t. It is thus possible that after today we could see a clear split in the league [or not].
The front runners YMCA travel to The Hills. The visitors have won their first two games this season, both highly competitive ending in narrow victories. They field the same side today as last week and thus bring to the game a number of players in form. For The Hills, shot out for under 100 v Clontarf last week, this is like another opening match. While their bowlers made Clontarf fight hard for their victory, it is effectively another first match for most of their batting lineup. Naseer Shoukat is not in their line-up for today and is replaced by Muhammed Ramazad who makes his senior debut for the club. The fixture has been chosen as the Match of the Day [watch out for the highlights package tomorrow morning].
YMCA: Jack Tector [C], Oliver Gunning, Simi Singh, Harry Tector, Sam Murphy [W], Bobby Gamble, Jarred Barnes, Padraic Flanagan, Asher Abbassi, Aviral Shukla and Jarred Barnes.
The Hills: Max Sorensen [C], Mark Donegan [W], Albert van der Merwe, Sean Terry, Nicolaas Pretorius., Tomas Rooney Murphy, Andrew Kavanagh, Will Archer, Luke Clinton, Killian Everard, Mohammed Ramazan.
A similar situation obtains in Sydney Parade where Pembroke take on Merrion. Pembroke’s batting had an off day last weekend [perhaps could be described it as a diem horribilis or for the Latin scholars diem malum] and were skittled out by Joe Carroll and Leinster. They will have the opportunity to make amends on their home ground today but come up against a Merrion attack that looks much stronger this year than last. Merrion go into the game with the advantage of having played two games where their bowlers and batters have both got valuable match time. Merrion is unchanged from last weekend but Andrew Balbirnie [who made a late entrance last weekend] is not on the team sheet for Pembroke today. Given the very different look of the two bowling attacks it will be interesting to see which team is able to get most from the wicket.
Pembroke: Tucker F [C], Tucker D, Lawson P, Lawson T, Little J, Balbirnie J, Hogan D, Garth J, Ridley A, Hoey B, Gupta, S.
Merrion: Dom Joyce [C], Patrick Tice [W], John Anderson, Tyrone Kane, Tom Stanton, Jack Carty, Poonish Mehra, Michael Lewis, JJ Walsh, Max Neville, Vikas Dhiman.
North County have the same opportunity as Pembroke to recover on home soil from a poor batting performance last weekend. Bowled out for less than 100 at Anglesea Road they will need a big improvement this weekend against Clontarf. North County have picked a 12 person squad for the weekend which includes Eddie Richardson. Owen Graham also comes into the squad. Clontarf got their season off to a great start last weekend when, led by David Delany, they were the third team to blow out their opponents for less than 100]. That they struggled to secure the victory one might put down to the fact that it was the first match. With a strong batting line-up [and Bill Coghlan returns to the squad after missing the first match] they remain the team to beat.
North County [from]:Niall McGovern [C], Jamie Grassi [W], Malcolm Nofal, Jonno Andrews, Tomas Sheil, Adam Coughlan, Andrew Sheridan, Conor Sheil, Sean Kingston, Cian Mulvanny, Owen Graham, Eddie Richardson.
Clontarf [from]:Joe Morrissey [C], Declan Gallagher, Shariful Islam, Waqar Azmat, Obus Pienaar, Andrew Poynter, David Delany, Robert Forrest [W], Conor Kelly, Sameer Dutt, Paul Ryan, Bill Coghlan.
In the final game Phoenix take on Leinster. Phoenix put in a solid performance v YMCA in Round 2 and weren’t far off securing a win. We are still learning about the capabilities of the Phoenix side but from what we have seen so far it is reasonable to expect that they will provide an important early test for the Champions. Adam Chester and Richie Lawrence play today and they are replaced by Ian Anders and Stephen Black on Monday. Leinster had the easiest of wins last week but as a result we did not get to see much of their batting. Today they made a two changes with Finn Conaty and Monil Patel making their debuts.
Leinster:G Dockrell [C], G Delany, D Coad, J. Carroll, A. Clough, M. Hogan, I. O'Herlihy [W], S. Bahadur, B. Azhar, M Patel, F Conaty.
Phoenix:Tom Anders [C], Richie Lawrence, Alex Karvelas, Rory Anders, Reinhardt Strydom, Ben White, Brad Kneebone, Gordy Miller, Sine Tsotsa [W], Fletcher Coutts, Adam Chester.
An interesting first day of a bank holiday weekend that could give us our initial indications of who will be challenging for honours this season. We will be monitoring matches for the Match Centre but will be reliant in many cases on updates from the ground. So if you are out and about and see that scores are not coming in please send in a tweet. All matches start at 12.00.