Unofficial Table after R12
It was a strange day with cricket reminiscent of a past era. There were regular batting collapses and the bowlers for once were on top. It was as if we were playing once again on uncovered wickets where any total over 100 was defendable. Exciting but strangely unsettling.
The Hills batting first in The Vineyard lost an early wicket but then Alert van der Merve [57] and Mark Donegan [37] put on 90 for the second wicket. Leinster took a few wickets and fought there way back into the game but at 157/4 there was little to suggest that this was going to be anything other than a standard 200 plus total. Then six wickets fell for 7 runs and The Hills were all out for 164. Gareth Delany [3/14] and Bilal Azhar [3/11] were the main wicket takers.
Leinster went into bat and immediately proceeded to lose four wickets for 4 runs and five for 16 as Max Sorenson [5/26] tore through the top order. At one point 11 wickets fell for less than 25 runs across the two innings. Joe Carroll [59] and Saqib Bahadur [35] staged something of a recovery for Leinster but in the end they fell short by 50 runs. The result means that The Hills have created some distance between themselves and the bottom two teams. They have a tough game next week v Merrion and were they to lose that and one or both of Leinster / Phoenix win their games, they could still be fighting for survival in the last round.
It is not often one comes close to defending 101 in the Premier League. Batting first North County were skittled out for 101 in 36 overs [all the Pembroke bowlers were in the wickets]. Top score was Adam Coughlan with 33. In normal circumstances that should have been that and the side batting second would have knocked the runs off for the loss of two or three wickets. But not so in this game and with Eddie Richardson [4/31] and Malcolm Nofal [3/13] leading the attack Pembroke were reduced at different points to 44/6 and 63/8. In the end it was an unbroken partnership of 40 between Paul Lawson [29*] and Gavin Hoey* [15] that got them over the line. All in all a distinctly old fashioned low scoring game with the result putting an end to North County’s already fading hopes of staging a late run to the title.
The third game in the Park between Phoenix and Merrion at least started off in familiar fashion. Phoenix achieved the early ascendency and at one stage had Merrion 54/4. But a 100 partnership between John Anderson [who went on to be the last man out scoring another century in the process] and Jack Carty [70] laid the foundations for the final total of 235. A par score in normal circumstances. Again matters started without any suggestion of the tumult to follow with Reinhardt Stardom scoring early runs and the score quickly moved on to 40/1. At this point Poonish Mehta changed the game and in the space of eight overs initiate a batting collapse that saw Phoenix bowled out for 68. Final figures for Mehta 6/8.
With the Clontarf v YMCA match to be refixed this means that Merrion will, even if they lose their next game v The Hills, go into the final round game against Clontarf playing for the title. Pressure is now on Clontarf to ensure they are close enough to Merrion to ensure that they too can win the title in the last match.