Season Review – Senior League Cup Finals

The knockout stages of the LHW Financial Planning Senior League Cup saw Group A winners Phoenix hosting Group B runners-up YMCA, whilst Group B winners Railway Union hosted near neighbours and Group A runners-up Pembroke.

We start with matters in the Phoenix Park, where the home side batted first, but found it very tough going early on, losing Ben White in his pinch-hitting role early, before some very tight YM bowling pegged back Grassi and Lawlor’s usually attacking instincts. Tom Anders’ 4/18 accounted for four of the first six wickets to fall, including dismissing Grassi for the top-score of 19. After Grassi, no batter could manage more than 14, with Adam Chester, Stephen Black and Aaron Cawley all falling on that number, this led to Phoenix being bowled out for 102 in the last over of the innings. Anders’ 4 wickets were supported by 2 apiece for Mikey O’Reilly, Simi Singh and Harry Tector, the regular wickets in the innings ensuring Phoenix were always under pressure, they had however scrambled to three figures and given themselves a chance.

Jack Tector started quickly, dominating a partnership with Singh before the latter fell with the score on 24. When Tector himself fell to Ben White for 24 a couple of overs later it was left to Harry Tector to steer the ship, his 32 from 24 balls comfortably the best innings of the day and with that he made sure run rate would be nothing of a problem to the visitors chase. YM did however have to survive a brief scare just short of the finish line but Wilhelm De Klerk and Rory Anders scrambled the winning runs in just the 16^th over and saw them through to the final. Aaron Cawley and Ben White took two wickets each to keep YMCA under the pump, but in reality Phoenix just never had enough runs on the board.

At Park Avenue meanwhile a fascinating encounter took place. Railway batted first and Pembroke set about their work, Paul Lawson dismissing Kevin O’Brien early on for just 1 looked like a huge moment, particularly when Ryan Hopkins’ medium pace then accounted for the wickets of both Hashir Sultan and Prabhanshu Kamal. All the while Kenny Carroll had been accumulating at the other end, and was now joined by captain Glenn Querl, this partnership was to prove the winning and losing of the game. Carroll managed 58 before being adjudged LBW, himself and Querl had added 76 for the 4^th wicket and given Railway a chance of a big score. Danger man Danny Barclay mis-read Fiachra Tucker’s googly and was bowled first ball, a boost to the visitors however they knew there would always be trouble as long as Querl was at the crease. This proved to be the case, the Railway skipper picking up the pace only to be dismissed in the final over, but not before amassing an excellent 55 from just 39 balls, helping his side to 137/7 from their 20 overs.

Pembroke’s chase didn’t start as well as they would have hoped, losing Ryan Hopkins for 2, however Gavin Hoey and Theo Lawson set about giving their side every possible chance of surpassing Railway’s score. Hoey hit the ball hard and straight, whilst Lawson favoured the sweep no matter what style of bowler he faced. When Hoey holed out to O’Brien off the bowling of Sultan for 30, the pair had put on 39 and given Pembroke a footing in the game. Lorcan Tucker was the next man in, he managed 12 but was the last Pembroke batter to reach double figures as wickets began to fall more regularly, Digamber Mishra being the bowler to benefit, taking three of the middle order scalps. Lawson batting through to a big not out score was the visitors best chance of victory, however as the run rate climbed, mainly thanks to a brilliant spell of 0/12 from 4 overs by Kamal, and he lost partners, this became less and less likely. He fell in the last over for 44, run out attempting to get back on strike and when Hashir Sultan cleaned up Patrick Morris, Pembroke were all out for 118, securing a 19 run victory for Railway.

On to Sydney Parade, where the final between YMCA and Railway Union was hosted fantastically as always by Pembroke CC thanks to Dale McDonough and his ground staff. Railway again batted first and unfortunately for them their innings unfolded similarly to the semi-final, losing O’Brien, Sultan and Kamal all before the total had reached 40, thanks in the main to an excellent spell of 2/11 from seamer Rory Anders. Again Kenny Carroll went about his business in unfussy style at the other end. This week however the Querl-Carroll axis could only manage a partnership of 36, as the Railway skipper fell for 16 to O’Reilly. Carroll put his foot on the gas in a partnership of 18 with Barclay before the same bowler accounted for the latter. Railway had reached 87 by now and Carroll was starting to really motor, making his way to 71 in the last over before some excellent work by Simi Singh saw him run out off the final ball of the innings. To accompany Tom Anders and Mikey O’Reilly both took two wickets to go with Rory Anders’ pair and YMCA would have been satisfied to have to chase 117 on an excellent pitch.

Jack Tector and Singh again opened the batting, the skipper dominating the partnership of 27 before falling for 17 to an absolutely spectacular one-handed Kevin O’Brien catch. This brought brother Harry to the crease at number 3, himself and Singh setting about the total with great control, adding 34 before the latter was dismissed for 28 by Alex Stiles. Curtis Campher was the next man in and himself and Tector took YMCA to the brink of victory before for the third week in succession Harry Tector fell within 5 runs of the winning line. His 46 from 36 balls had put YM well ahead of the game and when Campher deposited the winning runs to finish 25* the Claremont Road side had won by 7 wickets, with just under 5 overs to spare. The man of the match award went to Kenny Carroll for his excellent effort in the first innings, not often a member of the losing side would win such an award in a final, but nobody in the ground could deny that he was stand-out on this occasion.

Senior League Cup – Team of the Season

It’s a slightly trappy affair to choose a team of the season without setting out specific guidelines for the make-up of the side, therefore the team will comprise of 5 batsmen, a wicket-keeper/batsman, 2 all-rounders, and 3 bowlers.

We start with the batsmen, in terms of runs scored, the top 5 players in the Senior League Cup all come from different clubs, with each of them top-scoring for their side on at least 3 occasions throughout the season. John Anderson of Merrion is of course the first name on the list, his 364 runs at an average of 72.8 won him a third Marchant Cup on the bounce, and is more than enough to guarantee him a spot in the team of the year. Railway Union’s Kenny Carroll’s 326 runs at an average of 40.75 secure him a place alongside Anderson at the top of the order, whilst the remainder of the five batsmen will be made up by Greg Ford of Mahalide (263 at 52.6), Cormac McLoughlin-Gavin of The Hills (242 at 40.33) and Séamus Lynch of Terenure (235 at 33.57).

The wicket-keeping slot will be filled by leading all-rounder of the year, Railway skipper Glenn Querl, who’s 177 runs at 25.29 and 10 dismissals behind the stumps saw him collecting the Samuels Cup, whilst our two all-rounders will be in the shape of Leinster’s Saqib Bahadur, who’s 134 runs at 22.33 alongside 11 wickets meant he was the Samuels Cup runner-up for the season. North County’s Eddie Richardson fills the other slot having managed 152 runs and 8 wickets in the season.

Our bowling triumvirate to round off the team of the season will contain O’Grady Cup winner Mikey O’Reilly of YMCA, who was the only man to reach 20 wickets this season, at an average of just 9.35, he’ll be accompanied by team-mate Tom Anders who had 17 wickets at 10.35 while our final bowler will be Conor Kelly of Clontarf, who fell just short of the qualifying mark for the O’Grady Cup, but managed 13 wickets at an average of just 5.08 and an economy of 3.81 in only five games, both figures which make him a more than worthy inclusion in this selection.