WINS FOR PEMBROKE, RAILWAY, LEINSTER, PHOENIX, BALBRIGGAN AND MALAHIDE IN PREMIER LEAGUE (MAY 4TH)

An excellent all-round performance from Pembroke was undoubtedly the clearest takeaway in the Bank Holiday Monday action, as the double holders were nothing short of comprehensive in the featured game of the day.

The hosts lost the toss and were asked to bowl first, however they were off to the perfect start when Barry McCarthy nicked Stephen Doheny off, where Lorcan Tucker snaffled his new Leinster Lightning team-mate behind the stumps. Swapnil Modgill followed shortly after, caught by McCarthy off the bowling of Byron McDonough, before Seb Dijkstra fell to an excellent caught and bowled by Addison Sherriff.

When John Anderson and Andy Doheny fell in quick succession, it was down to Jamie Forbes and Sean Stanton to rebuild the Merrion innings, and that they did, the skipper stroked five boundaries and four maximums in his 55 before getting embroiled in a battle with Paul Lawson. Pembroke’s off-spinner was not for sitting down and having deceived Stanton in the flight, he was caught at long-off by Andy Balbirnie. By the time Forbes was caught and bowled by Lawson, Merrion had said ‘seeya’ to any chance of making a score in excess of 250.

Corne Botha, Mikey O’Reilly and Tom Ford marshalled the final 10 overs, adding 49 runs in the third PowerPlay to see the side to 224/9, however that was well below par on a true batting wicket. Addison Sherriff and Barry McCarthy joined Lawson as the other bowlers in the side to claim two scalps.

The second innings began extremely sedately, and with both JJ Garth (7) and Andy Balbirnie (12) falling relatively cheaply, the chase was dominated by Tim Tector, who regularly found the boundary in the opening 10 overs. The introduction of Corne Botha added some pace into the game, however that also added to Tector’s scoring rate, with ‘Tiger’ finding the ropes on several occasions off the Merrion’s overseas player.

The ‘golden arm’ of Andy Doheny returned to the attack for Merrion and clean bowled Tector for a fine 96, however any hopes the visitors had of going on a roll from there were swiftly extinguished, as Lorcan Tucker and Harry Tector batted with an excellent tempo, and were relatively risk averse, notching singles at will and finding the boundary regularly enough that there was never too much pressure on the pair.

Tector brought up his half-century with 15 needed, and ultimately finished unbeaten on 61, with Tucker also not out, making 35, as they added an unbroken stand of 79 for the 4^th wicket, securing 24 points for the hosts with 10 overs to spare.

Elsewhere, it was a tail of two centuries in Park Avenue, as Rob O’Brien’s first of the season saw him top-scoring with 106 as Railway Union made their way to 334/8 in 50 overs, he was supported by debutant Hayden Hamilton, who made 59, with Abhay Tipnis and Liam McCarthy also making 30s.

In response, it was a one man show for Cork County, as Raj Undre made a 98 ball 136, however with no other batter managing more than Josh Hartill’s 30, with the visitors falling 87 runs short, Sumit Kumar the pick of the Railway bowlers with 3/42.

In Rathmines, Leinster piled up 312, thanks to 79 from Tom O’Connor, 62 from Monil Patel and a brace of 30s for Mark Tonge and Saqib Bahadur. Abdul Ghaffar’s 4/34 was the pick of the bowlers for North County, with Sean Sludds and Eddie Richardson also claiming two apiece. The Inch men were also subject to being something of a one-man band, as Lochie Hardy’s second ton of the season saw him making 134, their top score by 116 runs! For Leinster, 3/40 for Mark Tonge was the pick of the bowling, as there were two-fors for Jai Moondra, Bilal Azhar and Bahadur, in a 94 run win for the hosts.

Phoenix picked up their first victory of the season in the Park, as Tyrone Kane’s century saw them making 231 all out in the 48^th over. Cillian McDonnell the pick of the bowlers for Clontarf claiming 3/35. Clontarf’s reply never got going in any way, as Sean McNicholl claimed both openers on his way to 4/34 from 7.5 overs, as there were also two apiece for Ben White and Amish Sidhu in securing an 87 run win, with no ‘Tarf batter managing to pass 30.

Balbriggan saw off Civil Service by 164 runs, as having batted first they piled on 314 all out, thanks to 73 for Cameron Rowe, with support coming from 55 for Seb De Oliveira and 30s for Ghanim Dara and Farooq Nasr. No Civil Service batter got past 26, as Zaman Safi top scored, with Balbriggan seeing 3/45 for skipper Dylan Lues the pick of the bowlers, whilst there were also two for each of De Oliveira, Ruan Strauss and Jordan Hollard, with the newcomers all out for 150 in the 39^th over.

Finally in Rush, Malahide batted first and saw scores between 60 and 72 for Greg Ford, Jeremy Martins and Robbie Foulkes to the fore in setting Rush an imposing target of 328 to win. Two wickets for Jack McGee and Asher Abbasi the pick of the Rush bowlers. The hosts saw each of their top 6 reach double figures, however of that batting core only Abid Taniwal (45) passed 14. Nasir Totakhil was ultimately the top scorer, making 76, however two wickets for Ravi Kumar, and three apiece for Kelvin Donnelly and Jeremy Martins secured an 87 run victory for Malahide, and completed an excellent Bank Holiday weekend for The Village.