Midleton’s Second XI’s season got off to a winning start today, with a 5 wicket win over MCU Division 2 new boys North Kerry CC at the Cricket Field.
Having won the toss, Midleton choose to field first, and the opening bowling partnership of John McEvoy and Charlie Bryan immediately put the visitors on the back foot. With runs at a premium, the visitors reached to the 10th over at 28 for the loss of one wicket to McEvoy. Though the runs finally started to flow, a fine spell of bowling by Magsi decimated the top order, returning fine figures of 3/29. But it was to be Nathan Bryan who was to prove to be the star of the day, with an incredible three wickets in the first three overs of his spell and two in a row in his last over, leaving him with figures of 5/20. Try as they may, though, Midleton were unable to take the last wicket of the innings, and North Kerry reached the 40 over mark with a total of 140/9.
Midleton’s response got off to a sticky start, with opening Andrew Levis out in the second over, but a fine display of batting from Ciaran “The Notorious” McGregor (30), Majid Kahn (19) and Kieran O’Reilly (26) soon had the scoreboard ticking over. North Kerry’s bowlers hit hard between the 15th and 18th overs, taking 3 wickets in quick succession including that of debutant Kieran Lineen, but Charlie Byran and Adrian Stack were on hand to add the remaining runs required to reach the target of 141 with 13 overs remaining.
