Trent McGrath in action for Balbriggan
There was little enough to report on by way of surprises in the 12th Round of the Russell Court D2 League. Merrion duly recorded their 12th straight win in the competition beating North Kildare by 179 runs. Batting first Merrion made 254/7 with a second half-century in a row from Bravesh Lakhotia [53]. The only real point of note to record was the success of the younger bowlers in the Merrion side who between them took eight wickets - JJ Walsh [4/31], Sean Stanton [2/11] and Richard Bisgood [2/8].
Of greater interest for the league was the outcome of the Malahide v Rush match which had a bearing on the relegation / promotion playoff between RCD1/RCD2. Malahide won their third game in a row and are now 11 points behind Dublin University with two to go. But this means that they have to win one of these and next week they take on Merrion at Anglesea Road. Their final match is at home v Balbriggan.
In yesterday’s match Malahide batted first and and made 211, mainly thanks to Sean Davey [52], Alan Reynolds [44] and Extras [43]. Rush in their turn never really got on top of the bowling and only Alex Neary [53] made a significant contribution. Danny O’Shea had the best figures for Malahide with 3/24.
In the final game Balbriggan had a comfortable 52 run victory over Terenure - defending a total of 177. In only his fourth senior game Philip Rout [coming on as fifth change] had the excellent figures of 5/25 for Terenure. Trent McGrath [60] made the only half-century of the game for Balbriggan and Farooq Nasr took 4/24 in Terenure's innings.