Team Highs and Personal Lows - A Division 3 Diet
When I made a blog about my season last year, it received mainly positive reviews from those who interacted with it. It has taken a long time for me to digest and look back on what was a very hectic season in charge of the YMCA 2nd team for the second consecutive season. It was an honour to captain this side again, after we had come close to winning both the league and cup the previous season. This year, I was prepared to try and atone for those defeats and get the club a bit of silverware.
Last year I was lucky enough to be offered the captaincy of this side by Alan Lewis, and I was eager to put my mark on the team in how I wanted certain things to be done. The implementation of certain aspects of fielding and standards took a while to bed in during 2018, and this year was a proper chance to stress test whether the team had come forward. It was a busy off-season for YMCA, we lost Jarred Barnes and knew that Oliver Gunning would not be returning for as long as he had done in previous years. However, in combat, the club brought in Fionn Hand and the Anders family, who I was lucky enough to have two of the brothers as regular contributors on my side.
The season could not have started in better fashion with a pre-season tour down to Cork. Organised by Jack Tector and Padraic Flanagan, we played a couple of games against Munster and Phoenix, and had a fair few beers to boot. It was an ideal chance for both 1st and 2nd team members to gel together early in the year, and I would like to hope that it was a great opportunity for anyone new to the set-up to get involved. Unfortunately, as the first game of the 2s season was on Easter Monday, I was away for the season opener. Sam Streek, who has become an extremely able deputy captain, took command to great effect, and we came away with a 53 run victory. Tom Anders finished on 99*, which must have been so cruel, but it also gave us a glimpse into what he would be able to offer us for the season. We defended 275 very well and came away with a commanding victory to start off.
I returned for the next game which was a trip to Observatory Lane to play Leinster. Opting to bowl first on a green surface, we restricted their very experienced side to 125. Devansh Singh took four wickets and Jamie Forbes got three in a very astute all round bowling and fielding effort. However, the run chase was nowhere near as straightforward as it may have seemed, and it proved to be. Opening the batting, I was constantly reminded while facing Bilal Azhar, that ‘this lad was playing for the Lightning a couple of years ago’ from the typically chirpy Leinster corden. I fell victim to the trap and nicked behind for 2. Dogged knocks from Ian Anders, Forbes and Mikey O’Reilly brought us over the line by three wickets. I remember giving Mikey a good shake of excitement after the game finished, I knew it was a banana skin chase and it was a game that we would have let slip the year before. As it transpired, that was the last game I played with Asher this year, as he decided to leave the club. It was sad to see Ash leave, he’s a very talented all-round cricketer and always impeccably turned out for a circuit, which is a massive trait in any man’s book.
We were on the road again the following week, making the trip out to Inch to play North County. Bowling first again, we managed to bowl out County for 125, with even myself chipping in with a two-fer in a marathon ten over spell. It is safe to say the limbs still haven’t recovered to this day. Forbes starred this day, he showed great control and guile, and scooped 6 wickets. I spooned one to point for 4 in the response, but brothers SJ and Wilhelm De Klerk combined to bring us to a 6 wicket win.
However, the bubble was slightly burst the next day playing in the Tillain Cup against Pembroke, who proved to be our perennial rivals for the whole season. After Diarmaid Tucker scored 60 in their 131-5, I simply got the tactics of the run chase all wrong. I got bogged down very easily and only mustered 26 off 36 balls, and the team fell desperately behind because of it. We ended up losing by 32 runs and I felt I had a lot to account for. Not only had I misjudged the run chase, but I had chosen to bowl myself ahead of regular spinner, Devansh. I also had been in a bit of a rush beforehand and had handled organising things for our brilliant scorer, Joyce, terribly. I had people looking over my shoulders telling me that I should be apologising to everybody. In the end, I faced up to my teammates after the game and we had a very personal and productive chat, heart to heart. People spoke up and said what they needed to say, and to this day I feel that chat was the making of our season. It was extremely tough at the time, and I was borderline in tears while speaking, but it brought the group together.
Looking to right the wrongs of our Tillian Cup exit, we travelled to Laois’ new ground for the first round of the Senior 2 Cup. It was up there with being one of my worst days ever in men’s cricket. I left a straight ball to hit my pad off my third ball and was plumb LBW. However, the team won the game by seven wickets and Laois were absolutely brilliant hosts, including a pint between the two teams in Napper Tandy’s after the game.
We were playing Clontarf the next day in a League game and my confidence was at an all-time low with the bat. Again we were good with the ball though, Raj and Devansh taking three apiece, while Forbes again impressed me with a controlled spell which led to the taming and dismissing of longtime Division 3 smasher, Vijay Gopal. The start of my innings was nothing short of extremely scratchy, bordering on unwatchable I would say. However, I gritted it out and came away to play a good knock. One big hooked six into the apartments in Claremont a personal highlight. I contributed 75 in a six wicket win.
We were to face Clontarf again the following week in Castle Avenue and put up a competitive 194 on the board thanks to runs from Tom and Woogy. Woogy was a new recruit to the side and an excellent one at that, with his sharp wicket-keeping and fluent batting being a great feature for the side. Flan, who had been having a tough few weeks, was opening the bowling for us and I was really trying stoke him up to get him into some rhythm. Low and behold, Flan started attacking the crease with gusto and was bowling an excellent early spell before twisting his ankle on his run-up. This injury was to curtail his season unfortunately and he had to reside as a Pavillion member from that point on. It was not to worry on the day though, as Max Collins took 5-13 in a wonderful spell of fast bowling. We bowled Clontarf out for 66, and they were not a bad side. I felt this was a statement to the league, we meant business.
However, as always, this game has an excellent way of knowing when you’re on a big high, and immediately levelling you. Perhaps it was over-confidence. The next few weeks we suffered poor and shocking defeats at home to Railway and away to Pembroke. The Pembroke game was perhaps excusable, but the Railway game was a shocker in every sense of the word from my point of view. I contributed nothing in either game and was getting very annoyed with my own lack of form. I got a poor decision in the Pembroke game and I momentarily snapped. I would like to think that most people know me as being quite calm when I get out, but this was the exception. Bat was thrown, helmet was thrown, everything. I even marched into the shower and threw somebody’s shampoo against the wall. I needed to let out a bit of rage, and I apologised to all who witnessed shortly after.
It was also around this time that we were knocked out of the Senior 2 Cup, alongside most of the other clubs in the competition for the use of ineligible players. I went to the sounding board that is Twitter to voice my frustrations, as a rule, hidden away in the regulation book had found ourselves and seven others guilty of fielding the wrong players. In our case it was Flan, which slightly summed up his season, especially given his performance in the first round of the cup was best forgotten. In a way, that was the best way we could have been knocked out, it gave us a good laugh after the initial burst of anger.
If left the team needing to respond and we had a tricky away game to Railway to deal with. Batting first, I scratched around and worked hard for my 21, and fifties from my opening partner, Aviral and yet another one from Tom brought us up to 213. It’s my view that at the level of cricket that I’m playing, getting around 200 gives you a chance, and getting to 250 is barely ever chased. Our bowling and fielding was superb this day in Railway, Devansh took 4, Sam with 2 and Tom with 2. Sam’s opening bowling set the tone for the majority of the year and this was no different. We capped the game off with a 99 run win, including a direct hit and completely over the top celebration from myself.
We were beginning to be ruthless at this point and we quickly discarded North County in impressive fashion at Claremont. Av took 3, Sam took 2 and there was even 2 for evergreen Sean McAuley as he was bowled them out for 89. Aviral and Darren Nicol made short work of the run chase. Having experienced heads like Tom, Ian, Sean and Darren in the middle order was pivotal to our success this season, as it gave us great depth. However, it led to some tricky selection problems at certain stages of the season and a couple of phone calls that I would prefer not to have had to make.
There was no doubt that my high and low point of the season came in back to back days in late July. The club barbeque on Saturday 27th of July was awesome, and I was delighted to be involved in the organising of the event. It was a full functioning barbeque while watching the girls youth teams play in their respective finals. There were massive crowds down in Claremont and after the games were completed, many of the club members sat around having a few beers. It was my idea of the perfect club night. I was caught on video with my shirt half off and sunglasses on in the Basement of The Globe, that was the sort of night we were dealing with.
All of this was brilliant, until the next day when I had to travel to Malahide for the 2s away game. I had to call Lewi to stop the car a few times on the way out there to spew at the nearest bin and I had one of the heaviest hangovers of all time perhaps. Next thing I knew, I had lost the toss and we had to field first in boiling heat. We managed to win the game somehow, completely without any sort of input from me, as I had to bat myself down at 7 in the run chase as I could not face the music. Ian obviously knew the pain I was in, and him and Sean both batted superbly to bring us over the line by 6 wickets, with me luckily still in the hutch. It was a bleak day all in all, and one that possibly won’t go on the ‘best games of all-time list’ for me personally.
We were back to back against Malahide and faced them on the home patch, with me focusing the majority of the week into being positively sober for the game. Again I was scratchy but I managed to get 77, with more runs for the Anders brothers’, which was becoming a regular occurence. Aviral led the way the ball and was backed up very ably by Cillian, as Malahide were held to just 93-8 in their reply of 251, when the game was stopped for rain. Young lads like Cillian and Mikey probably didn’t get as much playing time as they perhaps deserved this year on the 2s, but I hope they learned a lot from the games they played and it was simply a case of having such a strong squad on our hands. Despite this being the case, it was never easy giving lads like them the message that they weren’t playing the odd week, as they were more than able to be 2s regulars.
With just the three league games to go, we were clear at the top from Pembroke, who had games in hand. It was a country mile to the rest. It was quite evident that on each team’s day, us and Pembroke were by far the best two 2s side in Leinster, and probably up there in the whole of Ireland I would have said. We faced up against Leinster at home in our third last game, which would be my last game of the year. Runs from Ian and Aviral and another 4 wickets from Aviral brought us to another commanding win. I knew I was missing the last few games for Electric Picnic, so I handed over the reins to Sam for the last two games, with a big lead in the bag.
It was mixed feelings missing the final few games of the season and I would be lying to say that some of the lads didn’t give me a hard time for heading off to EP at such an important stage. I made the decision back in November of 2018 that I was going to EP and nothing was going to stop that from being the case. I would also be lying if I said I was not refreshing CricClubs every over of the two games while I was intermittently watching Dermot Kennedy and The Strokes.
As it happens, the Friday T20 refix was against Merrion, a team which Sam has a brilliant record captaining against. I would not have us down as a great T20 side, and our Tillain Cup record in recent seasons would indicate this. However, the lads put in a great effort to put up 178 on a good home deck, and managed to defend it with around 20 runs in hand. The league table made for good viewing, knowing that a win against Pembroke in the last game would secure the league. However, this Pembroke team were not going to just roll over, we should have known better.
I obviously was not at the game and I did not really ever ask anyone about what happened in the game to be honest. All I know is that Pembroke beat us quite comprehensively by six wickets. It was frustrating that we did not beat Pembroke this year, as I felt it was something that we could have done, but failed to execute for one reason or another. There is a friendly rivalry between the two clubs and it was a fiercely competitive environment come the end of the season. Pembroke beating us gave them a chance to go and win the league, but they needed to win their last two games against County.
This year, luck was on our side and their T20 refix with County got called off for rain and they went on to lose their final game of the season, which I suspect they may not if the other results had gone their way. Their final day defeat coincided with the YM end of season night out, where a fair few beers were consumed in joyous fashion. A couple of videos did the rounds of myself and some of the other lads ‘giving it large’, which in hindsight was probably not one of the best moves ever. There was no malicious intent to any of them and it was solely out of relief that we had got over the line in the league title race that prompted a few big cheers at the top of Sophie’s Bar.
It ended what had been a gruelling season for myself. I never at any point throughout the season felt in good form with the bat and if it was not for a few scrappy 70s, it would have been an absolute disaster. Still right now, I can’t really see why this was the case, just perhaps a lack of confidence and a lack of patience to grind it out, which is usually how I play my best. What kept things on the road was my team and the club itself. YM seems to be a club that is loved by those in it, and perhaps not so loved by those not in it. It is a club that suits everything to do with myself and to chalk off another year and most importantly, to bring a trophy in during my spell as captain is a feeling of great pride.
I saw on the Cricket Leinster review for this division that it was implied that we were a bit lucky to win the league, as we did not beat Pembroke. I see the point in this argument, but can’t help but disagree. We procured 47 bonus points over the course of the season in comparison to Pembroke’s 29, which was the guts of the difference between the two sides. We were beating teams comprehensively for the whole season and in that respect, the bonus point system does work as it shows off which teams have been winning by the better margins. I felt it a tad ironic as it was bonus points which was the main reason we didn’t quite get over the line in the league last year.
But alas, here I am in January 2020 now and I’m back waiting for the start of the new season and another tight and competitive season of Division 3 Cricket. I’ve decided to keep on as Captain for another year and hope for the best results going forward and hopefully to retain the League Title or at least, have another good stab at it. It’s also my ambition to have a proper good go at the Cup, but we might just read the rules and regulations first!
Until the end of next year, go well.