Phoenix began the Bank Holiday weekend with a crucial league fixture. Out of the side went Graham Flanagan, Steven Neill and Jamie Faulds for various reasons and coming back in were Matt Plunkett-Cole, Masud Ahmed and Manu Kumar. Captain Dickeson won the toss and chose to bat.
Phoenix’s opening pair were Rory Flanagan (whose father argues that Rory is an emergency opener) and the unsung hyphen who stated after his innings that opening is a “thankless task”. However, both stuck to this task gamely enough and after 12 overs and 25 runs both opening bowlers were rested. The next three overs all saw one boundary but in Kirwan’s third over Plunkett-Cole holed out to O’Brien to end the stand at 45. Kirwan soon had a second scalp when he trapped Flanagan lbw and Coach Downton was dismissed by the same method although the bowler was Riches. Conliffe managed to outshine the illustrious hyphen in a partnership of 48 although when this ended at 118 Phoenix were starting to run out of overs. Kelly survived his first delivery but was run out trying to get the strike back. Conliffe reached a deserved 50 and Kumar with 21 was best of the tail although some would argue that Wardell might be usefully deployed well above No. 11.
Malahide needed 185 to win and after 20 minutes were 14 for 1 when the illustrious hyphen had Riches caught at slip by Rory Flanagan. Daykin proved too good for anything a range of Phoenix bowlers could direct at him and McAllister held up his end well enough and the cumulative effect of their approach was a stand of 136 runs in 101 minutes. After McAllister was bowled by Masud the visitors took their time to wrap up the match and with Kumar and Flanagan taking two wickets each Malahide surrendered 3 bonus points to Phoenix before they crossed the line.
Man of the Match: M Daykin 112 runs, 3 wickets
