20th July 2024 – Dalkey Archives beat Wicklow, by 50-ish runs
First, the good news. Both teams turned up for the game. The reverse game had been arranged earlier in the summer between the Archives and Wicklow, for which the latter failed (at least on Fixture Secretary Walker's usually reliable reckoning) to turn up.
The bad news was that each team believed it was a home game. While the Archives meticulously prepared (a freshly mown) Shanganagh for the arrival of Wicklow, it transpired that Wicklow were doing more or less the same at Presentation College Bray, in anticipation of the arrival of the Archives. In the end, the Archives blinked, packed up and headed for Bray.
A 6.30 start ensued and a late finish beckoned.
The Archives lost two spectacularly cheap wickets, Tratalos departed for 1, before Tan and Musale steadied the ship, managing to score well amid a shaggy outfield that was disinclined to yield many boundaries to orthodox stroke play (the pull behind square on the leg side was among the more productive shots for all players). Once Tan retired, the Director strode to the middle, full of confidence in a summer that had seen him retired in every game in which he batted for the Archives.
One Diamond Duck later, he was back.
Not the Diamond Duck in Question
Having seen the first ball to Musale fumbled by the wicketkeeper, Mills fancied his chances following the benefits of hard near-suicidal running in recent outings. Not for the first time in his life, fate laughed at his presumptuousness. He was run out without facing a ball and without even getting close to the other end of the pitch. Another for the catalogue of Musale-Mills Misunderstandings. Surely there will not be another this season (spoiler alert, there will be).
Could the rest of the team prosper? Bloody right they could. In addition to Tan, 5 further Archivers retired: Musale (21), Hill (20), Bajpai (22), Roche (on debut for the Archives, 20), and Beamish (23). Cox was only deprived of his 20 by the effluxion of time. The Archives finished on 158: if not a record score, then certainly damn close (this chronicler remembers a game against Malahide where 7 Archivers retired and the score must have touched 160 on that occasion).
What could Wicklow do in reply, as a spectacular double rainbow presaged something biblical? They had once chased down a similar score against the Archives with an over to spare, but surely not again?
It's daylight now, but not for long...
In a word, no. They had three problems: a big target, an Archives team reasonably determined to hold its catches, and the gathering gloom. I don't have the Wicklow so scorebook, so some memories from before the dark descended will have to do. O’Regan Mills held a catch at fine leg off the Director’s bowling (ensuring this week’s pocket money was doubled), Beamish hit middle stump and I seem to remember a caught and bowled from someone, probably Hill: he is having that sort of late-season flourish. Cox was incredibly busy on the backward square leg boundary. A few run out chances were missed.
In the darkness that gathered over the last 5 overs and with 80 or so runs needed, very little happened, or if it did it could scarcely be discerned. In truth, it was getting dangerous: bowlers were bowling solicitously, batters swing optimisitically, fielders working on guesswork. I don’t have the Wicklow scorebook, but they fell about 50 short and Lonergan was run out by an unsympathetic Tratalos.
