DIVISION Two promises to be a competitive league, with Trinity showing last weekend that Clontarf are not as invulnerable as many thought. Most sides have an overseas pro, but Terenure and Malahide have “shopped local”.
Clontarf have got a buy-one-get-one-free deal with Zander van der Merwe, 21, crossing the Liffey from Terenure with Andre Botha.
Zander, a former Gauteng U19 player, played for Caxton Khosa iover the winter, taking 17 wickets at 9.7 in the 64 overs he bowled in limited-overs games and 18 at 12.17 in 81 overs of time cricket.
Dublin University have a 22-year-old Aucklander called Josh Tasman-Jones, who played 22 premier grade games for North Shore over the winter, scoring 550 runs at 20 and taking 26 wickets at 21. Tasman-Jones played for Auckland U21 last winter, and scored 74 from 46 balls and 76 from 43 balls against the Hyderabad Hawks U21s.
Balbriggan have opted for experience in their first season in RSA Division 2, with a pair of 39-year-old former first-class players. Steffan Jones played in 2012 for Dorset, his sixth English county, although he spent most of his 15 years as a pro with Somerset. Despite other reports, he never did play for Glamorgan. When he retired two years ago he told the Cricketer magazine:
“It is a shame I never played for Glamorgan because you can’t get anyone more passionately Welsh than I am,” said Jones. “My first language is Welsh and I have never spoken English to my mother and father.
“I would have loved to play for Glamorgan, which is like representing Wales at cricket. I had gone through all the Wales age groups from 13 to 19 and graduated to Glamorgan Colts where I won the player of the year award."
Jones has plenty of experience of Irish cricket – he first came here 20 years ago, when he played for Welsh Schools v Ireland U19 at Rathmines, taking the wickets of Ronan O’Reilly (twice) and Ryan Eagleson. He also played for Wales in the old Triple Crown tournament – and faced Ireland in 1994 when he took 10-1-73-0. Maybe he could discuss the pitch that day when he meets up with Conor Hoey (11-0-69-0) on 3 June. Jones had better luck for Northants v Ireland in 2006 (6-56, including Botha and Johnston), and 1-41 the following season when he was back with Somerset.
Balbriggan have also recruited the long-time Donemana all-rounder Azhar Shaffique. A left-hander, Azhar had a long first class career in Pakistan (mostly for Bahawalpur and Multan) playing 188 games and scoring 11 centuries before his last game in March 2012. He never played for the full Pakistan side, but did represent them at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.
And Rush also welcome back their 2012 pro, Lynal Jansen, who has scored 1,900 runs in seven seasons at Kenure Park. The former Boland Academy player now plays with Paarl for whom he topped the 2012-13 averages with 62.7 and helped them to promotion.