Cronje innings not enough for Ireland

A MAN-OF-THE-MATCH innings by Hansie Cronje was not enough to prevent Glamorgan romping to a six-wicket victory at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, that effectively ends Ireland's hopes of reaching the Benson & Hedges Cup quarter-finals.

Cronje seemed to have laid the foundations of a big total with 85 off 92 balls but his departure in the 38th over precipitated an Irish collapse that was only partly salvaged by a 31 not out from Angus Dunlop.

At the halfway stage there was some optimism that 202-9 was a defendable total but such thoughts disappeared as quickly as the ball disappeared to the boundary in a Glamorgan opening stand of 73 in 8.2 overs.

And the game was gone by the time Paul McCrum bowled Hugh Morris with an inswinging yorker, and Robert Croft followed in the next over caught behind off Cronje.

Wicketkeeper Andy Patterson took another smart catch to remove Adrian Dale but with Matthew Maynard helping himself to 50 off 51 balls, including a huge six over long off, Glamorgan reached their target with 19.3 overs to spare.

When play restarted on the second day in front of a crowd barely large enough to constitute a quorum at an Irish selection meeting, Cronje and Justin Benson had little difficulty in adding 64 for the fourth wicket.

Cronje lifted Croft for two sixes in an over (the compliment was later returned) with the second just eluding Tony Cottey, the smallest man in county cricket, on the mid-wicket boundary.

The South African cleared the ropes again after Benson had popped a catch back to Steve Watkin but the introduction of Dale's nagging medium pace induced a skied slog from Cronje and the innings stalled.

Derek Heasley and Declan Moore were both out for noughts and with only 14 runs coming from the next eight overs the prospect of a score around 240 was quickly traded for the respectability of batting out the overs and passing 200.

After the game Mike Hendrick, the Ireland coach, bemoaned the absence of key players due to work commitments and repeated his belief that the way forward for Irish cricket is to put its top players under contract.

Two of the absentees, all-rounders Decker Curry and Neil Doak, are back in the Ireland squad for the last B&H game against Essex at Downpatrick on Monday.