Under 11’s win the League

Cloney Juniors End Season With League Title.

Donaghcloney Cricket Club Juniors completed a successful season with the Under 11s taking their division league title – winning an enthralling final against Instonians “B” on Friday night. The Under 13 and 15 teams finished runners up in their leagues. Two players, Ben Wilson and Matthew Daly (pictured) were selected to play representative cricket for the NCU Under 11s and a Northern Ireland team who played against their Southern counterparts. Jobin Joy was also included in the NCU U15 squad.

The Under 11s had a great run in the Quoile cup, beating senior clubs such as Lisburn, CIYMS and Ballymena on the way to the final, before succumbing in the final to Instonians by 7 wickets. In their league section, they were undefeated, with comprehensive wins against Lisburn, Lurgan, Armagh, Laurelvale and Derriaghy. A play-off win against Carrickfergus setup another final against Instonians, playing their “B” team for the league title.

Instonians,  batting first, made steady but slow progress thanks to some tight bowling from Ben Wilson (1-8), Matthew Daly (1-6) and Luke Allinson (0-8) restricting them to 23 for 1 after 10 overs. Instonians accelerated in the second half of their innings and with some loose bowling managed to set a challenging score 81 from their allotted 20 overs. Best for Instonians was Patrick Carson, son of former Donaghcloney and Ireland player Neil Carson.

Donaghcloney’s reply got off to a terrible start with Ben Wilson being bowled for a duck in the first over. Matthew Daly arrived to the crease and immediately increased the scoring rate. With the score at 22 from 4 overs, the run chase looked comfortable, but 4 quick wickets left Donaghcloney reeling at 40 for 5 after 10 overs. Joshua Cunningham started the recovery nudging the ball around picking up valuablesingles. The loss of two further wickets left Donaghcloney needing 31 runs to win with only 3 wickets remaining. Mark Matthews proved a valuable partner to Cunningham and the pair added a valuable 19 runs. After Mark was caught out and brother Ryan run out for 1, last man Kyle Dickson joinedCunningham. With 12 needed off the last 2 overs, only 4 were scored from the penultimate over, leaving 8 required from the last over. With only 3 runs coming from the first 3 balls, tensions were unbearable amongst the Cloney support, but thankfully Cunningham remained calm, clubbing the fourth ball to the boundary and scampering a single from the fifthball to claim the victory. Dickson finished 6 not out and Cunningham producing a Man of the Match performance with 24 not out, along with his bowling figures of 0-12 and a run out.

It was a fitting end to a successful season with the boys winning 11 of their 12matches.