Clontarf produced a final over win to beat Rush in the second round of the Irish Senior Cup, making them one of five Dublin clubs to advance to the quarter-finals.
Despite always being well in control, they made slightly heavy weather of their win. With only Sean Terry [54] making a meaningful contribution from the top order it was left to Harry Archer [35] and Naseer Shoukat [23] to get The Hills to a score of 168.
Shariful Islam did the damage with the ball with five wickets for 34. Clontarf, and this has surely become their specialty, did just enough to win. Four scores in the 20s and 35 extras helped them struggle to 170/8 to win in the last over.
Three wickets each for Albert van der Merwe [3/36] and Daya Singh [3/26] were the main wicket takers but as usual pressure was exerted by Shoukat who bowled his full compliment of overs for 18 runs.
They join Leinster, Merrion Pembroke and Phoenix in the last eight following the weekends results.
At North Down, Pembroke won out courtesy of some superb batting from the Tucker brothers Fiachra and Diarmaid. The first wicket fell on 207 when captain fell for 116. Bragging rights must be hotly contested in the Tucker household as this only brought in a third Tucker, Lorcan, who made an undefeated 60 at a run a ball. The only disappointment was Diarmaid failing to record a century, falling on 93.
An understandably shell shocked North Down were then bundled out for 131 with Fiachra Tucker adding five wickets to an impressive match day contribution. The win was 216 runs.
Phoenix produced an excellent win over Instonians, currently riding high in the NCU Premier League. Having made 273/5, via a century for Murray Cummins, they were in a good position at the halfway stage against Phoenix.
But quick runs by Reinhardt Strydom (86) and Rory Anders (45) at the top of the order had Phoenix 149/1 after 20 overs to set the platform for a five wicket win with three overs to spare. Given the strength of the Instonians bowling attack with Nikolai Smith and Shane Getkate on hand, this was an impressive effort by Phoenix.
Early wickets for Rathmines’ Leinster in a rain effected game in Carrickfergus proved decisive. The home team subsequently recovered well to 174/6 but following more rain and DLS, Leinster were left to score 116 in 20 overs. This they duly did thanks to a 50 from Gareth Delany [67].
Merrion won a last over battle with CIYMS, defending a total of 273. CIYMS went into the final over needing 11 runs to win and two wickets remaining but Merrion nicked those two wickets for the win.
YMCA bowed out at the hands of Waringstown, blown away in the first innings.
Balbriggan could only manage 140 against CSNI which was duly knocked for the loss of one wicket.
