Harlequins Cricket Match Report

Munster Division 3

Harlequins 3 beat Midleton 2 by 28 runs

Played at Farmers Cross on 11th May 2003

As it turned out this was the first cricket match of the season to be played to a completion by any Harlequins side – and it was almost a disaster. With the match starting over half-an-hour late due to the heavy showers, we were all very grateful to the artificial wicket without which no match would have taken place at all.

Philip Russell, captaining the 3rds for the first time, won the toss and elected to bat. However a disastrous start saw the Harlequins innings reduced to 4-4 with the rapid dismissals of David Gash (1) , Donovan Gee (0), Gerry Horan (0) and Jack Russell (0). The score was still under 20 when the fifth wicket fell with the loss of Julian Breary (10) skying an easy catch off his top edge – this in his first ever match for Quins.

Now queue a Quins fightback with Richard Benson (24) and Nevin Rajasakran (19) putting on solid stand for the sixth wicket. A swashbuckling 18 followed this from ‘Captain’ Russell and an unbeaten 13 from Jim Burfield. Avni Arya and Des O’Leary both scored 0 to bring the duck count to five for the innings, and the final Quins total to 109 all out after exactly 40 overs.

The Quins bowling was opened by Jim Burfield and Donovan Gee. The Midleton batsmen found runs very hard to come by on the wet pitch and lost wickets steadily. Jim Burfield bowled 10 overs for 17 runs and picked up 1 wicket, whilst Donovan’s extra pace landed him 2 wickets for 8 runs off 6 overs. Nevin tipped in with a very useful, if expensive, spell of 3 overs, 2 wickets for 24 runs. However the star of the show and undoubted man of the match was Richard Benson who bowled 7 overs of spin, taking 3 wickets for only 24 runs – this to be added to his top score in the Quins batting line up.

Finally, the Harlequins catching should be mentioned. Apart from a drop in the slips off Jim’s bowling by Jack Russell, every catch was taken, with David Gash doing excellent work behind the stumps.

In the end, a nine man Midleton side was all-out some 28 runs short of their target. A good match played in a very friendly spirit. If only the weather was a bit less damp!