Having suffered a setback with their home league defeat to Rush Coach Webb emphasised to his charges the importance of a return to winning ways. Indeed for the 20:20 competition in its own right his hope was to get maximum benefit from the victory over North County. Graham Flanagan was fit enough to open the batting but Alister Stone deputised behind the stumps. Captain Dickeson won the toss and chose to bat.
The illustrious hyphen was confined to one single from the first six balls he faced but his partnership with the younger Flanagan soon hit top gear and after six overs Phoenix were 66 without loss. At 6.18 the illustrious hyphen was dismissed for 39 and the visitors began to take wickets regularly. In the end only Captain Dickeson
And Extras could match the two openers in reaching double figures. Phoenix were all out for 127 with Graham Flanagan the top scorer on 43 and Razza the leading bowler for the visitors on 4-0-16-4.
Coach Downton and the elder Flanagan bowled a tight line early on and the coach got his reward when the unsung hyphen caught Calder although the Dubliner was more prolific as he bagged Ali, Yogesh and Patterson to leave the visitors on 12 for 4. Dutt and O’Donnell brought some respectability to the proceedings and after O’Donnell and Srikkanth had gone Dutt and Razza got the score up to 75 for 6 but when Dutt was run out Phoenix were in charge and the visitors were all out for 91 with the illustrious hyphen and Masud taking 2 wickets each and the last one going to Conor Kelly.
Man of the match: Graham Flanagan 43 runs
This win put Phoenix in a good position for their visit to Rush a week later and the team duly capitalised with a victory which puts them in the 20:20 semi final.
P.S. Apologies to any player who finds the terminology used to identify him offensive and I hope not to repeat the particular term I refer to. However, I will persist with “illustrious hyphen” and “unsung hyphen” where appropriate.
P.P.S. Apologies for the late appearance of this match report. As I was unavailable to score the Rush match on 14/07 it was important to find an appropriate juncture to temporarily pass over the scorebook to the stand-in scorer, Deirdre Fahy, which came before I could write this report. Thanks to Deirdre for her efforts at Rush and the players who impressed her at Rush were bowler Manu Kumar and the illustrious hyphen with the bat.
