Delany delivers in series-levelling win for Ireland
GARETH Delany chalked up a century and claimed a five-wicket haul to help the Ireland Wolves to a victory that levelled the One-Day series with Namibia at the Wanderers Cricket Ground on Tuesday.
The Knocklyon man struck his maiden List A century from just 91 balls, bringing up the milestone in the 49th over by striking three consecutive sixes off the bowling of Ben Shikongo, before backing up his 104 with a career List A-best of 5-39 in a dominant bowling performance.
Delany’s innings was – for the third straight match – his career-best List A score. He registered a total of 282 runs, averaging 70.50 across the four One-Day games of this series.
He came to the crease in a determined fashion and settled quickly, building up a nice partnership of 29 with Jeremy Lawlor, before the latter (30) was caught behind.
Delany and captain, Neil Rock (26) produced some scintillating shots in an 89-run fifth-wicket stand before Rock was bowled by a yorker tailing into him by Jan Frylinck with five overs to go.
Frylinck followed that up by taking the cherished wicket of Delany, who struck 4 fours and 8 sixes in his century, as the Wolves posted a score of 252-7.
The Wolves bowlers did not allow Namibia to build any early partnerships with Graham Hume (1-37), Fionn Hand (2-56) and Delany taking early wickets to leave their opponents at 47-3 in the 13th over.
It was then that Delany’s dominance with the ball came to the fore, adding the wickets of Gerhard Erasmus, Lo-handre Louwrens, JJ Smit and Jan Frylinck.
He was ably assisted by some excellent fielding by Stephen Doheny and Jeremy Lawlor.
At 112-7, the Wolves’ bowlers began to tire and Ruben Trumplemann (67) and Dylan Leicher (46) struck a solid eighth-wicket partnership of 106 late in the game to put the pressure back on the Irish side.
However, late wickets to Josh Manley (2-50) and Hand saw the Namibians all out for 230 and the series levelled at 2-2.
Speaking about Delany’s performance, Wolves captain Neil Rock said: “Since he came to Namibia Gareth’s taken wickets and scored runs throughout the series and he was definitely the difference today.
“Namibia won their fair share of overs and, in the end, it was his innings and his bowling that was the deciding factor.”
