Halverstown v. Clonee

Social Fixture, Saturday 5th May
Halverstown won by 3 wickets

CLONEE 131-8 (35 overs)
Asquar 43
Shah 33*
---
S. Gallagher 3-7
B. Dempsey 2-17


HALVERSTOWN 132-7 (34 overs)
H. Ronaldson 31*
T. Ronaldson 29


Report by Des Drumm


After the rigours of the Arctic winter of last Sunday , this week was a positively sub-tropical 8 degrees. Clonee (the team formerly known as Intel) is one of our favourite fixtures but was less so when they turned up 35 mins after the intended start. Noreen Browne showed her management skills by shouting orders and having us scurry around and clear-up the kitchen and make room for her (and John's) many cakes. As the first car-load arrived in they were bundled into pads and became their opening batsmen whilst we took the field. I like to think that this accounts for extraordinary bowling figures of our opening bowler, Stuart Gallagher. However, since he bowled 3 of his overs towards the end of the innings, by which time their real openers had arrived I may have to ascribe his 3 for 7 off 7 overs to simply excellent bowling. Barry Ashmore partnered Stu in a very good opening spell against their bewildered batsmen ,taking a wicket-as did John Brown and myself, whilst Brian Dempsey took an impressive  2 for 17 from his 5 overs. The most notable part of the innings was our taking all 5 catches that came our way- two by Hugh Ronaldson and one each for Nassau, myself and Brian Dempsey, a caught-bowled.

Having looked like struggling to get to 100, Clonee actually made 131 for 8. We fed them John Brown's home-made chocolate cake at tea to try to slow down their fielding, which worked well initially as father and son Ronaldson opening combination scored a thumping 56. How we cheered Hugh, though, for scoring 2 more than Tim with his 31. Then TP, Nassau, Brian Dempsey and Hubert lost their wickets rather cheaply, though the latter's energetic 10 looked like being much higher but for an un-neighbourly like LBW from Tim. Michael Coyle scored an invaluable 16 allowing myself and Stuart to see us through on the penultimate over, helped more than a little by a flurry of wides- including the winning run. 132 for 7 and a win - close enough in the end - by 3 wickets.