Cork County 2 travelled East on Saturday 11th June to take on Waterford & District in Munster Division 2. Scot Jeffers won the spin of the coin and sent out Cormac Hassett and Peter Barlow to face Nithin Padmaprabher and Dave Latimer.
Barlow nicked off in the seventh over to Padmaprabher for 2 so Rob Duggan joined Hassett and set about the task of seeing off the opening bowlers both of whom were making life difficult for the visitors. Gradually, both batsmen began to accelerate their scoring and the partnership had reached 57 when a sharp throw from Dave Latimer was enough to see Duggan run out for 19.
County skipper Scot Jeffers strode to the middle and together with Hassett began to flay the hosts attack to all parts, seamer Ben Martin copping the worst of the onslaught (3-0-33-1). Hassett reached his half-century with a six over long on, his third of the innings before holing out to Siblee Islam off the bowling of Martin.
A fluent 67 from the opener helped Cork County to 141-3 with fifteen overs remaining. Scot Jeffers continued to attack the Waterford bowling before he fell for 37 in Siblee Islam’s final over, caught at short mid-wicket
The damp outfield meant that runs were difficult to come by but contributions from Sean Power (19), James Hunter (10), Kevin O’Sullivan (19) and Hugh O’Brien (10*) in the final ten overs helped County to 211-6 from their 45 overs a score which was probably 30 above par given the conditions.
Justin McGurk ran in down the slope and beat the bat on numerous occasions without reward. Hugh O’Brien, coming up the slope also consistently beat the bat but did pick up his reward when Siblee Islam was plumb lbw for 2.
Dave Latimer joined Bilal Hussein but departed just three balls later when he drove towards mid-on, called ‘yes’ and his partner sent him back. A gentle lob throw by Sachin Saxena to Peter Barlow behind the stumps was all that was required to have Latimer run out by a considerable distance.
Hussein himself was next to go, hooking Hugh O’Brien straight to Justin McGurk at fine-leg. Waterford were struggling on 14-3 and things got worse for the hosts when McGurk shattered Dylan McGuire’s middle-stump.
The introduction of slow bowlers Kevin O’Sullivan and Sachin Saxena led to more wickets. In his first over, O’Sullivan bowled Ben Martin for 1 and two balls later had Zach Shanahan lbw for 0.
Nithin Padmaprabher and Glenn Egerton felt the time was right to attack and added 26 runs together before Egerton chipped to James Hunter at cover off Saxena. Padmaprabher departed in the next over, Hunter again taking the catch but this time at long-on off O’Sullivan.
Saidul Haque was lbw first ball to Saxena and Waterford were 9 wickets down with 66 runs on the board. Cian Egerton was the last man in and the Munster U13 representative was resolute in defence with an excellent, balanced technique.
A flick into the leg-side for two was followed by a well-executed cut for one to bring Durga Kakollu on strike. That should have been the end of the innings but Kevin O’Sullivan grassed the chance at gully off the bowling of Scot Jeffers.
Four balls later however, the innings was over Egerton driving uppishly to Hugh O’Brien at mid-on off O’Sullivan. Kevin O’Sullivan finished with 4-22, Hugh O’Brien 2-9, Sachin Saxena 2-13 and Justin McGurk 1-18. W&D were 75 all out in 32.1 overs, the margin of victory 136 runs.
