Heartbreak for Halverstown CC ... again

Images: Halverstown CC.

In the Adamstown T20 Cup Final, held in Terenure Sports Ground on Saturday 24th August, Halverstown 2 were beaten by 4 wickets by odds-on favourites Longford 2, writes Halverstown's Des Drumm. But it was so very, very close: it went to the final over before Longford eked out the win with just 2 balls left. 

There were echoes of Halverstown's previous appearance in this Cup Final 3 years ago when they lost by 6 wickets with only 7 balls left. This year saw a huge effort by the Kildare underdogs that came within a hairsbreadth of success in an exciting game that swung one way and then the other. Not until the last ball bowled was the Longford win obvious.

There was an underlying edge to this encounter. Longford 2 were top of Division 20 in the Cricket Leinster League until they played Halverstown 2 two weeks ago. Halverstown were heavily beaten but Cricket Leinster found that Longford fielded 2 ineligible players and the game was awarded to Halverstown, pushing Longford down to 4th- one place below Halverstown. Despite this, the Cup Final was played in a good spirit by both teams.

Winning the toss Longford opted to field, relying on their strong bowling line-up to skittle Halverstown out as in the league encounter. But this was a stronger Halverstown team, and it posted a respectable 134 for 6 in the teeth of some impressively fast and accurate bowling. The anchor in this storm was Chaitanya, who scored a well executed 52 off 44 balls, including 7 boundaries. Others of note were Junaid Khan, whose two towering sixes helped him to 28, and Tojo Thomas's quickfire 12. Waqar Khan was once again Longford's most impressive bowler, the Cyprus international taking 2 for 12 with Ghazi taking 2 for 20, both off 4 overs. 

Longford found the Halverstown bowling difficult to cope with too and after 10 overs were well behind the required run rate. But they gradually hauled this back with Ali (39) performing the Chaitanya role and Saqib (27 off 12) and Ghazi (16 off 10) doing some big hitting to get them over the line. Avenish Patel took 3 for 14 in 4 overs and Junaid and young Matthew Hodgson took a wicket apiece. Longford had needed 12 off the last over, which was tricky enough. However, the tenseness of the game got to the Halverstown fielders and in the last few overs there were loose moments which cost some valuable runs in fumbles, overthrows and attempted run outs. 

Nevertheless, it was a brave effort against very strong opposition. Captain Ahsan Syed and his team collected their runners-up medals from Cricket Leinster President Siobhain McBennett and the fight they showed in the field and in batting augurs well for the final few league games and particularly for future T20 competitions, which has become a format in which the club excels. They certainly did the club proud throughout the cup campaign.

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