The winning Clontarf Team: LHK Insurance [Alan Murray] T20 Champions 2017
After an exciting and full days cricket, live streamed to the world for the first time, Clontarf duly won the LHK Insurance [Alan Murray] T20 League in a very close encounter with Pembroke. Before a large crowd and a live audience for the uTube feed of over 750 for each match [there were more views after close of play] and hourly peaks of around 300 on the Match Centre [and 1650 visitors over the day] this must have been the most watched / followed T20 Finals day ever.
And in terms of the play the best was kept until the last. Clontarf won a pulsating final by just 4 runs. Batting first [as all winners on the day did] Clontarf posted a total of 149/8 in their 20 overs. They might have expected more following a 71 run second wicket partnership between Andrew Poynter [52] and Brad Barnes [47]. At 115/3 in the 15th over a total around 165 might have been expected. But excellent fielding and slow bowling from Jack Balbirnie [3/16], Fiachra Tucker [0/27] and Benn Hoey [1/23] ensuring that there was a very chaseable total on the board.
Pembroke started well with a 55 run opening partnership in 8 overs between Andrew Balbirnie [56] and Theo Lawson [26]. Balbirnie then shared in another 55 run partnership with Lorcan Tucker [26] which brought the score to 110 with the best part of five overs to go. But what should have proved a relatively comfortable chase proved to be anything but. Excellent death bowling by John Mooney and ‘Ropu’ Islam put massive pressure on the Pembroke batting and in the end they came up short only managing 145/5.
Earlier in the day the finalists had reasonably easy wins over Merrion [v Pembroke] and The Hills [v Clontarf]. In the first match Pembroke posted was seemed at the time a fairly ordinary 144/4. That they got this score was thanks again to runs from Lawson [51] and Balbirnie [44]. Tom Stanton [2/19] was the pick of the Merrion bowlers. But in reply, Merrion’s top order never really fired and only John Anderson [44] managed to get above a run a ball. Ryan Hopkins led the Pembroke attack with the best bowling performance of the day [4/19] but it was a team effort with the five bowlers used all playing their part. Merrion ended up 27 runs short but in truth they never really looked like chasing down the total.
In the second semi-final Clontarf made 165/7 batting first thanks mainly to a typically belligerent 59 [43 balls] from RJ ‘Bobo’ Forrest. Best of the bowling came from Nazeer Shoukat [2/18] with his usual accurate spell. The response by The Hills never really got going and only Sean Terry [71] mastered the conditions and the Clontarf bowling. The most economical four overs of the day came from Mooney [1/13] and Islam [3/17].
So how do we conclude? Was the new format of three weekends, a mid-week QF and a Finals day [in a block mid-season] a success. No doubt this will be high on the agenda of the focus group of D1/D2 cricket. Was it worth the considerable efforts of all concerned to get the match out to a wider audience through social media / live streaming. Again what are the lessons to be learnt?
From the perspective of the cricket itself and Ireland’s lack of success in recent years in the T20 format a couple of points stand out. From the QFs on no team managed a successful run chase. Across the seven matches of the final stages of the competition the average runs scored in the first innings was 161. So it wasn’t the case that teams were batted out of the game on first innings. Perhaps some more thought on what it takes to chase a total at around 8 runs per over.