The condensed Senior T20 Blast competition came to a thrilling end on August Bank Holiday Monday with a Cork derby pitting the two in-form sides so far against each other at the Mardyke.
Road to the Final
The 1st XI started the competition with a fixture against their ultimate final opponents which once against served up an exciting finale with Cork Harlequins clinching victory with the penultimate ball of the tie. County set a target of 145 to win having been well set at 97-1 after 10 so would feel they left 20/30 runs short. Cormac McCarthy-Hann hit the winning runs for the visitors with one ball remaining.
Cork County 144-9 [20 overs] (Pollard 39, Saddique 37, Shah 25, O’Reilly 3-27) lost to Cork Harlequins 145-7 [19.5 overs] (McCarthy-Hann 32*, R Jones 25*, Pollard 3-19) by 3 wickets. scorecard
Next up was a must-win tie with Midleton and County duly obliged with a comprehensive 7 wicket victory over the East Cork side. Having restricted the visitors to 126 with some excellent seam bowling, the top 3 led the way to victory with Wootton top-scoring with 46* ably assisted by Pollard with 40.
Cork County 128-3 [13.2 overs] (Wootton 46*, Pollard 40, Saddique 22) beat Midleton 126-6 (Gasper 2-15, Pollard 2-23) by 7 wickets. scorecard
A Semi-Final trip to the Oyster Oval was the reward after the ultra-condensed pool stage and despite the wet and gloomy conditions County came out on top by 4 runs on DLS with 6 overs of the reply completed and the persistent rain set in on an already saturated outfield.
Cork County 35-1 [6 overs] beat County Kerry 129-9 [20 overs] by 4 runs on DLS at the Oyster Oval. scorecard
Final
The final pitted the two Cork sides against each other once again and it proved to be another tight affair with County coming out on top with 3 balls to spare. Chasing 117, the reply got off to a slow start after the loss of Pollard early on but the skipper Abubakar Saddique showed some resistance with a hard-working 32 at the top of the order. The Quins attack showed great discipline in their bowling and prevented County from getting away.
Zuhair Shah provided some much-needed impetus in the middle order with 18* before having to leave the field A nasty ricochet of the ball to his face from a throw-in as he was making his ground for a quick single. Alex provided the finishing touch with a 6 over long-on to clinch the victory much to the relief of home side.
Special mentions for Harvey Wootton’s crucial run-out, Rob Duggan’s catch in the deep at long-on, the skipper Abubakar Saddique’s performance with bat and ball but the truly memorable moment has to be Alex Gasper’s tremendous leave in the 19th over with 5 runs still required!
Cork County 122-6 [19.3 overs] (Saddique 32, Gaspar 24*, Shah 18*) beat Cork Harlequins 116-8 [20 overs] (Carey 2-15, Wootton 1-14, Joshi 1-17) by 4 wickets at the Mardyke.
