3^rd June 2011 Match Report

Weather: 
Played at Castle Park in Dalkey on a magnificent sunny summer day with temperatures in the teens/early twenties °C. Both teams sat in front of the school watching the match, facing the sea in the lovely evening sunshine

Match Review:
Batting
The 120 ball match was played in the Taverners standard format of 20 overs of 6 balls each, requiring all 10 fielders to bowl 2 overs each. The Archivers batted first with Iain Walker and Patrick Wilshere sent in to open and scoring 21 and 20 respectively in quick time. Iain retired first and Patrick was then joined by Paul Barlow. Dalkeys score was around 50 off 8 overs at this time. Patrick then retired and Owen Jacob then came to the crease and entertained with some power hitting (especially some elegant cover/on drives). Paul Barlow scored 9 before being bowled off a good delivery from Malahide’s Mike Fingleton. Joe Fallon then came in to bat and scored 10 runs before being caught hitting out to the bowling of  C.Smith. Johnny Miller then came to the crease and was out after scoring a few singles bowled for a total of three. Ace batsman Dave Lee then came to the crease. Shortly afterwards Owen was also caught on 19, going for a big hit. Robin Addis then joined Dave Lee at the crease. Dave went on to score a rapid 23 (one 6 and 4 cracking fours plus a single) before retiring and allowing Richard Corkin to come to the crease. Robin Addis scored two before being bowled hitting out to Malahide’s eventual man of the Match Kevin Murphy. Geoff Nurse then came in to bat. Richard Corkin scored a rapid 13 before being stumped trying to hit out with the teams score on 125. Bruce Hill then joined the crease with Geoff.  Bruce and Geoff put on a partnerships of 10 before an on drive from Bruce was well fielded at mid-on and Bruce was run out with Dalkeys score on 148 after 19.3 overs  with 12 extras.

Fielding
Dalkey opened their bowling attack with the evergreen abilities of Joe Fallon and Iain Walker. Some fine cover fielding during the match from Bruce Hill in taking two fantastic hard hit catches helped Dalkey slow down Malahide’s batting onslaught. Malahide required 30 off the last four overs of the match, which were bowled by Archiver stalwarts Owen Jacob and Johnny Miller. Malahide managed to score 22 and were 8 short of their winning target to give Dalkey Archives the narrowest of victory margins.

Men of Match
Dalkey awarded Malahide’s Kevin Murphy a Bottle of Wine for his fine overall tail end batting performance to bring Malahide to within a whisker of winning the match in the last three overs. Also for his good containment bowling and breakthrough wicket achieved in the mid-order batting of Dalkey.

Malahide did not make a Man of the Match award, but kindly presented the Dalkey Archives Captain with a commemorative 150^th Malahide CC founding tie.  

Special Mention
Thanks to Graham of Castle Park School (Ireland Kick Box champion and EU Silver Medallist) for allowing us to stay on past the usual 9 pm gate closing time at Castle Park – much appreciated the fact we could enjoy our Pimm’s and sandwiches with him.