From Outside the Rope: And Then the Garda arrived!
The polis arrived just after the peri-penultimate over, many assumed that a distraught supporter of The Hills 2nd XI had succumbed to the temptation to demand that Nadeem Akhtar be taken away for crimes of a cruel and unusual nature.
That over had commenced with Cork County needing 30 runs to win and with 9 wickets down, The Hills skipper, in a attempt to get the job done in a hurry, bowled a short one and was blasted into Joey's field - 24 required.
The next one got the same treatment with the added insult that it was deemed a no-ball, 17 to win. Mercifully there were only 4 more scored off the remaining 5 balls in the over, leaving the men from The Mardyke seeking just 13 off 12 balls and judging from the way they were dealing with the bowling it was not beyond their compass.
It had all started so well for The Hills, Amir Raza (80) and Peter O'Donnell opened and were settling nicely when Peter got himself out, caught for a few. Amir batted on and, joined by Mal Byrne (28), he continued to mine the rich vein he had broached last week at North County.
The advent of slower bowling saw the demise of Mal and it seemed also to presage the slow death of The Hills innings as none of the following batters could emulate Amir's endurance and stickability until, that is, the arrival of Darren Byrne (45) who went about both seam and spin with abandon and would have brought his side to 50 overs had he been a bit more circumspect in his choice of run with the legend, Mick Dwyer, a run-out seemed inevitable and so it occurred, The Hills 2nd all out for 194. It didn't seem to be enough.
Luke Clinton took an early scalp, Peter O'Donnell taking the first of his two slip catches, but that was that for a long period as the Corkmen went comfortably about accruing the required runs at 4 per over, treating the seam attack with something approaching disdain.
Something different was needed and was duly found, Ajaz Farooqi slowed things down with 3 wickets off his spin wizardry and Andrew Moore with tight, accurate bowling put the screws on and as the pressure built up the run rate began to fall.
Wickets tumbled as Cork tried to reverse the trend and it looked as The Hills had done enough to grab a priceless win and to climb above their opposition in the Division II table. Then came that over!
Nadeem said afterwards that he had been asked by the club physicians to arrange a cardiac stress test for the senior members and so he had been working hard to ascertain the health of "the Rope" and other venerable gentlemen on the verandah. We owe him a vote of thanks for that!
Oh, it should be recorded that Luke Clinton duly obliged with that final victim and we all went home for tea, tired but happy.
Congratulations to The Hills girls under 13 team on their Cup semi-final win over Rush at Kenure on Sunday evening.
Bobby Swarbrigg
Reproduced with kind permission of The Hills CC
