Harlequins Cricket Match Report

Wednesday 19 June 2002

Cork 20 Over Cup 

Harlequins Blues  
Midleton  

By Jim Burfield

The major surprise that is that we were able to get a game at all. With the rain that we’ve had so far this June, the only thing you’d be expecting to see on a cricket pitch would be Noah and his ark. All credit then to Jim Doran of Midleton CC who made a great effort to provide a grass wicket for this our first 20 over match of the season. It also happened to be the quarter final of the 20 over cup, which Harlequins have won for the two previous seasons.

Harlequins won the toss and elected to field – I have to say that I initially thought we made a mistake because for the first fifteen minutes of the game we only had eight players - the traffic at the Kinsale Road roundabout being the main culprit.

Phil Hattersley and Jim Burfield opened the bowling tightly and bowled the first 10 overs for just only 38 runs, taking a wicket a piece. There was also a very sharp run out by Julian Heggarty who hit the stumps directly from a good 25 yards. Some very tight bowling from Don Tanner was the feature of the second half of the Midleton innings, and Don deservedly picked up an LBW, before putting a catch down off his own bowling. Even so, the Quins fielding remained pretty sharp for the first match of the season, and a dodgy running decision by the Midleton batsmen resulted in another run out.

Billy Perrott, Peter Payne and Julian Heggarty all had one or two over spells, and Julian in particular impressed, trapping a Midleton man LBW with his fourth ball. Between all of this Midleton attempted to accelerate but were kept largely in check by the constant fall of wickets, and they eventually finished up with 78 for the loss of 7 wickets after their allotted 20 overs – their seventh wicket falling to a run out on the final ball.

The Harlequins innings was a story of one man – Rajiv Varma demolished the Midleton attack to score 43 runs, including 3 sixes and 4 fours, before skying a catch to the Midleton keeper with the target of 78 only 12 runs away. Billy Perrott finally got his eye in and ably supported Raj with an unbeaten 16, and John McDonald finished off a comprehensive victory in the 10th over to finish on 12 not out.

Well played lads, and roll on the semi-final!