Halverstown v. North Kildare 2

Dick O'Neill Cup, Saturday 9th June
North Kildare 2 won by 68 runs.

NORTH KILDARE 179 
G. Clark 60
G. Hunt 34
---
M. Monteiro 3-8
K. Threadgold 3-35
S. Mathew 2-31

HALVERSTOWN 111 
M. Monteiro 41
S. Mathew 18
I. Walker 17

Report by Des Drumm



It must have been in the first full year I played for Halverstown-indeed played cricket-in the halcyon days of John Brown’s captaincy that Halverstown won the Dick O’Neill Cup . I remember well that I was dropped for the final and the all-star team included the likes of President Alec Paton, nearing his 70th year  and famous for his amazingly long innings without any runs actually being scored. It goes to show that (a) I was obviously no better at cricket then than I am 9 years later, (b) cricket was a gentleman’s game where true amateurs could still flourish and (c) the sun always shone in those far distant days .

We meant business. The team was strong, so strong that Alec Paton was not even considered. When I won the toss we decided  not to bat first so that we could get home early but to field, so that  we knew what we had to go for for the win. No half measures: this was the Social team in mean mode. Monty and Kevin Threadgold opened the bowling to devastating effect and after 9 overs they were struggling at 17 for 4. Monty’s 3 for 8 off his 8 overs was stunning. Then came their captain, who scored 60 and the tide turned. They had a powerful batting line-up that batted right through the order. With nos. 9 and 10 both scoring over 30 apiece, they chalked up a daunting 179.

With 4 of our first 5 batsmen scoring 8 runs between them, how I regretted not calling Alec Paton up. Iain Walker struck a good 17 and  a tiny ray of hope came with Mathew Sunil’s18 and Monty’s 41. I soon put an end to that by running Monty out. Well, he had already run 2 of our batsmen out so it was only fair. Having 4 of us run-out altogether must be some kind of record that we probably should not boast about. Our tail-enders failed to live-up to theirs but we managed to get to 111 with some pride intact. We learned  that N.Kildare 2nds played in Division 7 in the League- a division higher than our firsts and 6 Divisions higher than our seconds. And this was our Social Team (kind of), so we felt quite good about ourselves- and we think they may have felt a little less good about themselves and some rather dubious behaviour on the pitch.