Match report Ireland v Surrey C&G 2004 by Gerry Byrne

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Scorecard:

Ireland v Surrey

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DateLine: 16th December 2004

 

Highlights

Debut: D.T.Johnston

 

This was Ireland’s first match of the season and the win extended their winning sequence to 10.

 

It was Ireland’s first win over a first class county in this competition and their second win in all over a first class county in competitive cricket. Followed their win in the Benson & Hedges Competition over Middlesex in 1997. There were three players in this match who had been involved in the 1997 win – W.K.McCallan and P.G.Gillespie of Ireland and M.R.Ramprakash who was playing for Middlesex at that time.

 

New Cap Trent Johnston is an Australian who is married to an Irish girl and has now got an Irish passport. This, together with his 100 days coaching, playing and working for cricket in Ireland when he played as a professional for Leinster in 2001, meant that he qualifies for Ireland as a national under ICC rules. In fact pending final clarification of his eligibility, he was selected as the second overseas player allowed in this competition. In fact his qualification was confirmed before the match. He had also spent 3 seasons in Leinster with the Carlisle team in 1995,96 and 98. He was now playing for and coaching Clontarf.

 

The Irish side showed 4 changes from the team which had played against Denmark in the last of 2003 fixtures. G.Dros; D.T.Johnston; P.G.Gillespie and J.A.Bushe replacing C.M.Armstrong; D.I.Joyce and two Irish players with counties in England, N.J.O’Brien and A.G.A.M.McCoubrey who were not released by their counties, Kent and Essex respectively. As compared with the team that played Hertfordshire in the first round in 2003 D.T.Johnston replaced P.J.K.Mooney, who was not fit for this game.

 

The match was spread over two days due to bad weather – another similarity with the 1997 Middlesex game. There had been 4 rain breaks on the first day, the last coming just after Surrey had been dismissed so that the Irish innings did not get started. However, sterling efforts by the ground staff meant that play on the second day started on time.

 

Surrey were short a number of their strongest side. M.A.Butcher and G.P.Thorpe had come back from West Indies Test Tour but as centrally contracted players were not released by ECB to play. R.Clarke was still with the England one day squad in West Indies. A.Tudor was injured and S.Newman was unavailable for personal reasons. Nevertheless the side contained no less than 8 players who had played international cricket. All 6 of their bowers were internationals.

 

The successful chase was the highest ever for Ireland.

 

50 Partnerships
For Ireland

1st wicket	103	J.A.M.Molins/J.P.Bray (equal record for this wicket in C & G and its predecessors)
4th wicket	 67	G.Dros/P.G.Gillespie

Against Ireland

2nd wicket	 55	A.D.Brown/M.R.Ramprakash

 

Man of the Match award went to A.R.White of Ireland for his bowling in the Surrey innings and his batting with McCallan to see Ireland home

 

Ireland will now play Northamptonshire at home in the 3rd round on May 29/30.

Match report

Surrey's abysmal start to the season has continued - today they were embarrassingly bundled out of the C&G Trophy by Ireland in Dublin. After setting a total of 261 on a rain-truncated first day, and despite fielding an attack consisting of six Test bowlers, Surrey's challenge was brushed aside, and Ireland won with a full ten balls and five wickets in hand. On current form, however, it was not that much of an upset. Surrey are in disarray after a winter of upheaval, while Ireland are now unbeaten in their last ten matches. Mind you, they have only once before beaten a county side in a competitive game – Surrey's arch-rivals Middlesex, who lost at the same venue in 1997, again over two days.

 

Ireland's batsmen made contributions all down the order, to complement their consummately professional performance in the field on Wednesday. They were given the perfect start by Jeremy Bray and their captain, Jason Molins, who both scored half-centuries in an opening stand of 103. Molins was particularly fluent in his pursuit of victory, cracking seven fours in a 57-ball 58, before being bowled by Azhar Mahmood.

 

Ireland's South African import, Andre Botha, kept up the momentum with a 22-ball 17, but the writing was already on the wall for Surrey. That much was apparent from the amount of extras they were conceding. The final tally was 24, including 15 wides and six no-balls. Ireland, for their part, sent down just four wides in the entire Surrey innings.

 

Mahmood and Martin Bicknell briefly revived Surrey's hopes, when they dismissed Gerald Dros and Peter Gillespie in the space of two runs (223 for 5). But Andrew White and Kyle McCallan sprinted to the finish, rattling off the remaining 39 runs in just six overs.

 

It was just deserts for Ireland, whose spirited efforts in the field on Wednesday had set up the victory chance. At 39 for 0 after five overs of the match, Surrey had been scenting a clean kill, with Ally Brown in especially belligerent form. But the 17-year-old Eoin Morgan took a fine catch on the long-on boundary to dismiss Brown for 67, and the innings subsided, with Botha and White both picking up three wickets.

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Gerry Byrne)