Week three? Seems like we have been playing for months, following a WK2 where every club, ground, team and county was involved.
Premier
Two Sunday matches –
Galway 1 (104/10) lost to Midleton 1 (129/10)
Kerry 1 (166/10) lost to Cork County 1 (167/8)
Galway looking to come back loss vs Kerry in week 2, playing hosts at the Lydican to Midleton. A low scoring match saw the visitors win by 25 runs, helped by Reju Jayaseelan 35, Dean Wilson 28 & 4/34.
210 kms to the southwest at the Oyster Oval, Kerry, buoyed by last week’s big win played Cork County. A close game being won by the visitors by 2 wickets, Nabeel Anjum 74no, Byron McDonough 33, Muhammad Saddique 3/4, for County. Khuram Iqbal 45, Awais Saghir 40, Syed Owais 4/17 for Kerry.
Division 1
Three matches over the long weekend –
UCC 2 (169/7) beat Nenagh 1 (167/10)
Kerry 2 (96/10) lost to Cork Harlequins (97/4)
Midleton 2 (133/10) lost to Cork County 2 (135/5)
The last Saturday of April had UCC host Nenagh at the Farm in a hard-fought game with the home side winning by 3 wickets. Navam Gupta 64, Vikranth Masina 30, Kunal Chaturvedi 5/37 for UCC. Sreehari Vinobaji making 45 for Nenagh.
Meanwhile down at the Oyster Oval, visitors Cork Harlequins overcame Kerry by 6 wickets in a low scoring game, for their first win of the season. For Harlequins, Jack Buss 20, Keiran O’Reilly 19, Kanishk Kumar 3/29. Varun Ghorpade & Brain Andrews both making 20 for the home side.
The final game of the division was on the bank holiday Monday at Townparks, Midleton, where Cork County won by 5 wickets. Midleton’s Robert Smyth 29, Prakhar Sarin 3/23. County’s Robert Duggan 31, Ishaan Seehra 3/18.
Division 2
Four games across Sunday & Monday –
Cork Harlequins 3 (205/10) beat United Clonmel 1 (179/10)
Midleton 3 120/6 lost to Limerick 3 323/8
Cork County 3 141/9 lost to Limerick Blasters 2 142/9
Kerry 3 136/10 lost to Nenagh 2 150/9
At Farmers Cross, Harlequins maintained their winning record and closed out victory over United Cricket Clonmel by 26 runs. For Quins, Zulfiqar Baramatiwala 42, Jatin Jaitley 39, Mike Higgins 4/20. For the visitors, Kishor George 38, Romald Lazarus 32, Santhosh Thomas 4/28.
Down the road at Midleton, rain popped up on the scene to turn what was a high scoring game into an away win for Limerick on DLS by 92 runs. Limericks performers: 134 by Arslan Sayyam, supported by Sri Teja 41, Mohan Rajendra 42. For Midleton, Melvin Mathew 47, David Nicole-Currie 3/48.
Back to Cork & the closest game of the long weekend. County lost by 1 wicket at home to Limerick Blasters. For County Jaeden Searra 51, Arpit Ahuja 5/27. For the visitors, Fivin Thomas 33, Regis Rex 4/20, Jinson George 3/29.
The bank holiday saw Nenagh make the trip down to Kerry, where they closed out a close 14 run victory over the home side. For the visitors, Bharath Keerthipati 58, Jomy Joseph 3/23, Vimal Mathai 3/14. For Kerry, Prince Thomas 3/22.
Division 3
Three games all on Saturday –
Limerick 4 (54/9) Lost to United Clonmel 2 (55/0)
Clare 1 (118/10) Lost to Waterford & District 1 (152/7)
Cork Harlequins 4 (221/7) lost to Cork County 4 (224/0)
United Cricket Clonmel started things off with a comprehensive 10 wicket win over home side Limerick. Clonmel’s Muhammad Khan 3/12 being the pick of the bowlers.
Down in Carriganore & a reversed fixture saw Clare travelling East to Waterford who won by 34 runs. For Waterford Satish Muddar 57, Amal John 34, Ben Martin 3/37, Baby Jobin 3/20. For the visitors, Gugz 37, R Kumar 3/25.
Finally back to Farmers Cross Cork, where home side Harlequins posted a decent score only to see it knocked off by the Cork County openers. An unbeaten stand of 224 to win by 10 wickets. For County, 116 to Craig Taylor supported by Bilal Ahsan 72. For Quins, Gaurav Khurana leading on 42.
Division 4
No games this weekend.
Summary
So week 3 of 25, despite the forecast, no games were lost to rain although DLS had a run-out. 3,583 runs were scored across the long weekend.
We are into May and can see the T20’s on the horizon, perhaps the batters are getting ready as there were 20 sixes over the weekend making 44 for the season.
