CIYMS celebrate All-Ireland trophy joy

CI continued their perfect run in cup competitions this year with an six-wicket victory over Cork Harlequins, marking their fourth trophy of the season.

And they’ll be looking to round off an already remarkable campaign by making it five in the Irish Senior Cup final against Lisburn next weekend.

After winning the toss and electing to bowl, CIYMS captain Nigel Jones could barely have wished for a better start as overseas professional Keith Dudgeon (4-10) bowled Harlequins skipper Matthew Brewster for a golden duck with the second ball of the game.

Dudgeon has enjoyed a brilliant first season in NCU cricket at Belmont and was back amongst the wickets in his next over as Mubeen Ali (1) guided a leg-side delivery through to wicketkeeper Chris Dougherty to leave the hosts in all sorts of early trouble at 8-2.

They were never granted the opportunity to recover from the precarious position as CI kept their foot on the pedal through Allen Coulter’s (1-22) dismissal of Brandon Kruger (4).

Cork’s hopes of a competitive total rested with Ryan Joyce (32) but when he was bowled by Jacob Mulder (2-23) it triggered a mini-collapse as they lost three wickets for no runs, reducing them from 57-3 to 57-6 in the space of six balls.

Dudgeon was then reintroduced into the attack and picked up a further two wickets to mark a wonderful afternoon as Harlequins were bowled out for 93, with Mark Adair (1-15) collecting the final wicket.

That score was never going to be anywhere near enough against a rampant CIYMS side stacked full of quality and they got off to a typical rapid start through Ross Adair (35).

Adair kicked the innings off by taking 15 from the opening over and added 10 more to his tally in the second from Hassan Khan, which