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On behalf of Armagh Cricket Club, we send our condolences to Ian and the Houston family circle at their tragic loss.

Dundrum cricket club sends our condolences and prayers to Ian Housten and their family circle who lost their 5 year old grandaughter after a long illness. RIP

Have just heard the tragic news that Ian Houston's grand-daughter has died after a long illness. My thoughts are with Ian and his family at this awful time.

Please contact Mark Hawthorne with any appointment queries until further notice.

Re Craig Irwin,

I thought of that match too actually but didn't have that scorebook at hand to check. My stats were provided by our first team scorer so I'm going to have to let him know about that! Maybe the Mall isn't a graveyard for batsmen after all :)

Gareth (Armagh CC),
Sorry for being picky but check your scorebook for our game against you in early June 2008. Lurgan scored 314 and you scared the living daylights out of us by getting 250 in reply. Colin Russell again starring with the bat. The game was only safe when he got out in the 90,s. Anyway good luck for the rest of the season.

wayen, as always a sensible and practical reply, i totally agree with wht your saying.

On a lighter note i experienced a first yesterday at ardmore , first over and walking back to the end of my run up and a sheep is walking past me baaaing away, very surreal but it did keep us amused with all the sheep jokes for about five overs.

As they say only in the nor west would you see that lol

Back to cricket, there was a sensational game on the Mall yesterday when Armagh scored a colossal 328-4 against Templepatrick in our 50 overs. Colin Russell and Charu Kulkarni both scored centuries in a partnership worth 209 for the third wicket.
In reply, Templepatrick's score of 220 all out ensured that the match aggregrate of 548 runs was a record for any Armagh match and that there had been over 1000 runs scored on the Mall that weekend.

Who would be a bowler!

Rules

Rather than clubs getting into ding dongs on a forum about the interpretation of the rules what I think is clear is that there are just far too many rules at present and different rules in different comps does not help players or umpires. It was well debated last year on this forum that my own club got docked a point for going over the time limit. A rule was broken and the punishment that was set ended up costing us a share of the league. would it have changed the result on the day? no, but the impact was the same. Ironically that rule was changed this year so the result is sorted on the day. This is not dissimilar to the rule re sub fielders. The rule was broken, what is the punishment. Points lost. Does the punishment fit the crime? No. Consistency has to be applied though as "the spirit of cricket" is hard for rule makers/or rule imposers to apply consistently the letter of the law must be enforced (or so precedent would suggest).

What needs to happen? Shred the effin rule book and start again.

Premier League and cups - captains or playing reps meet in Sept and agree on rules for 2010. Majority rules

Div 1- as above

Other leagues (and this is not arrogance just practicalities) - a more straightforward set of rules are set by meeting of clubs based on rules of Div 1. Some rules may not apply such as duckworth lewis etc.

Get the game the way the players want it and if that is 3rd xi teams wanting 20 over games midweek instead of 50 over games at the weekend. Crack on, it is the promotion of cricket that is key.

I have never posted here before but after reading all this talk about bad sportsmanship I thought I would share my recent experiences im a firm believer that what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch I personally like to have a bit of banter and will shake hands with anyone afterwards win lose or draw
Last season we were due to play in the 20/20 shield but pulled out the week before it commenced as we would be unable to field a team, our 2nds were due to play a game on the same day and with phone calls being made at 11am on the Sunday were finallyn able to raise enough under 15s to field we then went on to beat the team that finished 2nd in the league and got promoted to have the points took off us because the 1sts pulled out of the 20/20 shield (personal opinion I didn’t agree with this)
A few weeks ago we were playing a match to which the opposition were struggling to bowl their overs in time and were instructed so by the umpires and were let know every over how long they had to bowl the remaining overs, but when we took the field we got to the 48th over and the game was getting quite tight next we see the opposition captain stroll onto the field as the over was about to begin walk to the umpires and ask about time we had been off for a rain break and were not instructed to my knowledge of what time we had left we were then penalised 12 penalty runs but still went on to win lets just say incidents like this make the beer taste all the sweeter!!!
Sorry to go on but the in another game I witnessed a bowler and batsman exchanging words to which the bowler push the batsman then a few balls later the batsman nick the ball behind to which the wicketkeeper catch the ball to only to drop the ball and still claim the catch to which the batsman walked anyway to calm the situation no umpires present for what reason I cannot comment as I don’t know
Just my take on things

oh boy, the forum has been busy this weekend!
i can understand the heated debate, but am annoyed that derriaghy are being dragged into it. a few facts about what happened at queensway:-
- derriaghy chasing target
- ciyms need a sub-fielder and ask if one of their spectaters can field
- captain agrees, but at no point was he told it was a first team player or better still 'the PRO!'
- the game is comfortably going derriaghy's way until the PRO takes a stunning catch to remove an established batsman
- collapse ensues and derriaghy lose by just a couple of runs.

if this is not a good example of why the rule was brought in in the first place, then i would like to know why it was brought in.

Quite a lot of nonsense being talked here, but Taito arrogant!? A bad man to have a bet with but def not arrogant!

Stuart, there is absolutely no arrogance involved in what i am saying, I would say the same if any of the top clubs had taken the same actions. If you knew me at all you would no that i am in no way arrogant about being a member of downpatrick cricket club, Yes i am very proud to be captaining the club but dont mistake that for arrogance.

All I have to say on the matter is that our seconds stuffed cregagh seconds out of sight yesterday with captain danny carson finishing with 100 not out and figures of 4 for 12. What is that called again??? Karma possibly

I find this sad people arguing over points because of a sub fielder. The rules here are long overdue an overhaul because the whole spirit of the game is disappearing.

However I have said this to officials in the NCU and publicly that the decision to void a match over every incident and infringement however minor is ludicrous. It only punishes the winning team. Every single time this happens it causes someone else to walk away from the game.

NCU must be given the power to apply a range of punishments. A written warning outlining player responsibilities, a fine, a points deduction or voiding the match should be options rather than voiding the match for every infringement.

It is called 'common sense'. Unfortunately we don't see it very often.

Re Jeff,

I wasn't re-opening the issue that Dundrum and Armagh had last season, I was merely highlighting the controversies that substitute fielders can bring about in a game.

Taito,I do not intend to get into an ongoing debate about the sub fielder issue. My/the Club's points have been made. However,your last posting just reeks of the arrogant atttitude of some of the more established senior clubs and some of their players (including yourself) when dealing with the Section 3 and 4 clubs within the NCU. A glance at the NCU Fixture book will tell you that your club are now down to three senior teams the same as a number of Section 3 clubs including Cregagh.