DUBLIN CITY COMFORTABLE WINNERS IN U23 OPENER

Dublin University 237/9 in 50 overs (Stephen Black 44, Theo Dempsey 44, David Vincent 30, Sean O’Brien 3-58, Liam McCarthy 1-39, Andrew Doheny 1-46, Swapnil Modgill 1-20, Daniel Forkin 1-42, Cillian McDonnell 1-25)

Dublin City 240/4 in 36.1 overs (Liam McCarthy 85*, Hedayat Ullah Khogiani 59*, William Barker 2-53, Theo Dempsey 1-38)

Dublin City win by 6 wickets

Dublin City were comfortable winners in this group match in the U23 Siggins Cup. Having restricted the hosts to 237 they chased down the target with 6 wickets and more than 14 overs to spare.

With the match starting in lovely April sunshine, an impressive opening partnership of 82 from Black and Vincent gave DUCC a platform to launch their innings, however an excellent team bowling performance saw them restricted to 237 in 50 overs. Black’s innings featured some excellent hitting to a shortish boundary and 4 sixes to go with 2 fours gave him a strike rate well above a run a ball.

He was well caught with a half century in sight however and the Dublin City attack worked well to make runs hard to come by for the rest of the innings. Skipper Theo Dempsey also made 44 (60 balls, 1 four & 2 sixes) but wickets continued to fall regularly and both teams were relatively happy with their lot at the end of the innings.

Sean O’Brien was the pick of the bowlers with 9 good overs for 3-58. Everyone got at least one wicket and Cillian McDonnell had the tidiest figures, 10 overs, 2 maidens, 1-25.

Modgill and Prakash opened the batting for Dublin City and were faced with a fired up DUCC captain in Theo Dempsey. He bowled tightly and with control in his opening spell and took the wicket of Prakash. William Barker took two quick wickets to leave Dublin City precariously positioned at 93-4 but a match winning partnership between skipper Liam McCarthy (85 runs, 49 balls, 8 fours, 4 sixes) and Hedayat Ullah Khogiani (59 runs, 62 balls, 3 fours, 2 sixes) was the difference as Dublin City ran out comfortable winners.

After the match Dublin City skipper Liam McCarthy spoke both of his enjoyment of the match and to the value of the competition as a whole.

Next match for Dublin City is against Fingal in Balbriggan CC on Monday 6th May at 12 noon.