The penultimate weekend of the season saw all four teams in action, with our 3rd and 4th teams playing their final competitive fixtures in 2020.
First up on Saturday afternoon, our 1st team traveled to Terenure. North County batted first, as they have done in each of their six matches this season. Niall McGovern top scored with an innings of 43 off just 33 balls, including six boundaries and one six. Salman Aziz and Eddie Richardson both scored 18, while Jonathan Andrews (17 off 13), Sean Sludds (10 off 4) and Manmeet Singh (9 off 5) provided late cameos, to help post a score of 140-8 off 20 overs. Zubair Khan was the pick of the bowlers and took 4-29 off his four overs. After six overs of the Terenure reply, rain forced the players off the field briefly. Three overs were lost and the revised target was 123 from 17 overs. Mick Cotter played the stand out innings and scored an unbeaten 63 runs off 34 balls. He was supported by Dewald Barnard (22) and Donal Lynch (16). Three runs were scored off the final ball of the match to leave the scores tied.
Our 3rd team faced Tyrrelstown at Inch on Saturday in their final game of the season. The visitors batted first having won the toss. Despite finding themselves 70-6 at one stage, they managed to finish on 138-7 after their 20 overs. This was largely thanks to an innings of 51 not out from number eight batsman Rajkumar Koka. Daniel Mooney and Mudassar Zahid both picket up two wickets each. The North County chase never really got going after both openers were removed without scoring. Mudassar Zahid scored 44, but wickets fell regularly around him. Despite a late innings of 18 from Zia Mohyuddin, County were bowled out for 117, to lose by 21 runs.
Sunday saw our 4th team finish off their campaign with a home game against Balbriggan. North County batted first and posted a competitive total of 125-5 of their allocation of 20 overs. Manan Rafique played a fantastic innings and top scored with 75. The Balbriggan reply was built around innings of 35 and 34 from Badeeu Zaman and Farhan Raja respectively. Ciaran Morrison took three wickets, Srijan Yerramsetti claimed two and young Johan George got his first senior scalp, but the visitors completed the chase in the penultimate over, with Mohammad Zaman hitting a huge six to finish the game off.
On Sunday our 2nd team were also in action as they travelled to Balbriggan. Niall McGovern made 20 and Ben McBride top scored with 24 in the first innings of a low scoring affair. Runs were hard to come by, and North County made 100-7 after 20 overs. Keegan Laing and Anthony Mooney both took four wickets each and Pritish Onmalwar took 2-3 off just seven balls to bowl Balbriggan out for just 73 inside 18 overs.