WINS FOR RAILWAY, CIVIL SERVICE, RUSH & THE HILLS - IBI CORPORATE FINANCE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND-UP (AUGUST 17TH)

The IBI Corporate Finance Championship this week saw wins for the top two, Rush & Railway Union, whilst North County slipped to defeat in the local derby with The Hills, and Civil Service squeezed things tighter at the bottom thanks to victory over Cork County.

In Park Avenue, a top score of 66 from Philippe le Roux was supported by 40s from Hedayat Khogiani and Fakhar Zaman, as they ran up a big total of 262/8 inside 40 overs. With the ball, there were two wickets apiece for Dylan Cleary, Donal Vaughan and Nawaz Khan who was particularly impressive, however they were made to rue early dropped catches of both le Roux and Rob O'Brien, both on less than 5 when chances were missed. Terenure's chase began slowly, with Henry Dall and Sid Nair both getting starts in an effort to build the innings, however Séamus Lynch's 71 was the only real resistance as the side were all out for 158.

In The Maws, Rush produced an excellent bowling effort, as three wickets for each of Nathan McGuire and Alex Neary saw North Kildare shot out for just 113, Waqar Azmat the only player to make any impact making 28 in the middle order. The chase wasn’t straight forward as Rush lost both openers Doyle and Viswanath early on, however Jack McGee (26) shared solid stands firstly with McGuire, and then with Hashir Sultan, who’s unbeaten 39 guided his side to a 5 wicket win and helped consolidate their spot at the top of the table.

In the Phoenix Park, Civil Service batted first and made 241, thanks to half centuries for Arjun Chandrasekar and the Extras column, whilst there were 30s for Dhiraj Shetty and Asadullah Ahmadzai. Sam Fenn led the Cork County bowlers with 3/30, whilst there were two wickets for each of Diarmuid Carey, Suliman Safi and Nabeel Anjum. Cork County didn’t manage to ever really get ahead of the run rate, but 30s for Ross Durity, Thorne Prophet and Abdul Ghaffar guided them to 199, as two wickets each for Civil Service’s quartet of Siddique, Khan and the Srinivasans, Ramgokul & Vivekanandan led them to a 42 run victory.

Finally in the Fingal derby, North County batted first and thanks to 50 for John Devane, who top scored, with support from Suliman Safi who made 37 and Ben McBride with a lower order 32 helped them to 201 all out, as once again there were a plethora of two-fors, including Sean McNicholl, Nicolaj Damgaard & Tómas Rooney-Murphy. The Hills chase got off to a really solid start, with 62 from Brandon Kruger at the top of the order and 32 from Will Archer helping pass half way for the loss of just 2 wickets, however after a brief wobble, Andy Kavanagh and Rooney-Murphy both made 20s, in guiding the side to a 3 wicket win with just under three overs to spare.