Club News Archives - 2004

If you have a club news item to contribute, we would be grateful if you would email it to us... To make room for new stories on the 'Club News' page, all of our stories will eventually move here to the archives but they will stay available here for future reference... 20/12/2004 AB makes debut against England... As reported on CricketIreland on Friday, AB de Villiers, as expected, made his debut for Soth Africa in the First Test against England in Port Elizabeth which is due to conclude tomorrow. Having won the toss on Friday, the Proteas elected to bat and AB was straight into the fray with skipper and fellow opener Graeme Smith. Matthew Hoggard produced a sensational start for England when he had Smith caught by Strauss off his second delivery. Despite his inexperience at this level, AB bedded himself in with number three bat Jacques Rudolph which saw them put together a partnership of 63, helping to steady the South African ship before AB was snared LBW by Andrew Flintoff for 28. Despite looking plumb at first glance, Hawkeye seemed to suggest the ball may just have cleared the bails so he may have been a little unlucky to see that end to what was a solid debut innings which Roger said saw "some typically classy shots through the point and cover areas". The South African innings was eventually ended on day two with a total of 337 on the board with contributions of 93 by Rudolph and 110 by Dipenaar. England's reply saw them close out on day three with a total of 425 with the oustanding contribution of 126 by Andrew Strauss ended by a comfortable but well-taken catch at point by AB. Day three saw AB back in the boards as the South Africans set about trying to overhaul England's first innings lead. Despite looking pretty comfortable for the first 5 or 6 overs, AB fell on 14 to a sensational caught and bowled dismissal by Matthew Hoggard, picking the ball off his toes from a slightly pushed backwards defensive stroke from the young opener. The South African second innings ended around midway through today (the fourth day) with most of the damage having been caused by a wonderful spell of bowling by Simon Jones, who finished with 4 for 38. Despite a couple of early scares, England finished the day on 93 for 3, requiring just 49 more runs to clinch the win, with in-form opener Strauss undefeated on 51. England look to be in the driving seat going into the final day as they hunt for a record eighth straight test win. 16/12/2004 AB de Villiers expected to make Test debut... AB de Villiers sensational rise continues with his announcement in the squad of 12 to face England in the Port Elizabeth test due to commence tomorrow. With influential South Africa opener Herschelle Gibbs still injured, AB is strongly tipped to make the final 11 and face the currnet world number one bowler Steve Harmison and the world's top all-rounder Andrew Flintoff. AB sounded modestly confident in a recent Cape Times article detailing his call-up and our own Coops gave his analysis of this precocious talent in an article today on the BBC Sport website. It's a long way off from a Carrickfergus debut which saw AB step off a plane to face Belfast Harlequins on a damp May morning just seven months ago! His form since his return to South Africa, however, has fully justified the call-up. After the tremendous form he showed in Carrickfergus' colours during the summer, culminmating in incredible back-to-back double centuries in July, he has continued to grow in stature with some wonderful innnings. His maiden First Class century (151) came in mid-October for the Titans against Western Province Boland and he followed this up just a week or so later with a second century to help seal victory over the Eatern Cape Warriors. The start of December saw WP Boland once again suffer at the hands of AB as he chalked up his maiden one-day century in the Standar Bank Cup. All told it has been a marvellous year for the amiable young South African with (hopefully) his first Test Cap being a marvellous and deserved way to round off the year. Everyone at Carrickfergus Cricket Club send our warmest congratulations and will be wishing AB well for the match tomorrow and what we hope will be a spectacular debut... 16/12/2004 First and Second XI full league fixtures announced... First and Second XI league fixtures for 2005 have now been released and these will appear in full on the fixtures section of the site within the next couple of days. In the meantime, a full Section One fixture list can be found here. 16/12/04 Carrickfergus confirmed as ICC Trophy host venue... Carrickfergus has been confirmed as a venue for an ICC Trophy match. The Management Committee applied to host a game from this prestigious championship and were delighted to be informed recently that the Club has been successful with a match to be held on Saturday 2nd July. As yet, the allocations of matches are not known but further details will appear when we have them. 16/12/2004 Cup draws for 2005... The draw for the Clubturf Ulster Cup took place in the last few days and sees Carrickfergus drawn away against Bready with the match to take place on Sunday 8th of May. Mid-November saw the Newry and Down Democrat Cup draw match Carrickfergus against Lurgan (21st May) in a repeat of last year's Second Round (all Section One teams receiving a bye in Round One). This time, however, we will face them at home with hopefully a more favourable outcome. See here for full draw. The draw for the Irish Senior Cup took place earlier in November and sees Carrickfergus drawn away against 2004 North West Section Two winners Ballyspallen, with the match scheduled to take place 14th May. See here for full draw. As far as the other Club teams go, the Second XI have been drawn away to Cooke Collegians II's in the Intermediate Cup, the Third XI will face Downpatrick III's at home in the Lindsay (Minor) Cup, and the Fourth XI have a bye through Round One of the Minor Qulaifying Cup and will face Civil Service VI's in the Second Round. 16/12/2004 NCU Annual General Meeting analysis... Carrickfergus sent our normal four man representation to the NCU AGM and Roger summarised the main points of the meeting as follows: "Despite a near three hour meeting it was very much as you were following the NCU AGM. The only change of any significance as far as the playing side is concerned is the return to 45 over cricket in 3rd and 4th XI league matches after one season of playing 40 over cricket. The proposals to ban overseas professionals, and to reduce the Challenge Cup final to a one day match were both heavily defeated". 16/12/2004 Carrickfergus players feature in NCU averages... Carrickfergus players featured prominently in the end of season NCU averages list. AB de Villiers sensational season with the Club saw him land top spot in the batting list with an incredible average of 127.71 (894 runs from 9 innings with 2 n.o.'s), with ever-popular visitor Shane Singe close behind in second spot with a not-too-shabby average of 81.75 (327 runs from 7 innings with 3 n.o.'s). With Coops (39.81 ave) and Ryan (39.20 ave) also amongst the top-ranked NCU batsmen this year, Carrickfergus players managed to fill a total of 4 of the top 20 positions. The Club was also well-represented in the bowling list with both Ryan (24 wickets at an average of 21.83) and David Hobson (22 wickets at an average of 24.14) making the top 20. See here for the full list. Congratulations to all the guys for their great efforts in the season. 07/09/2004 Firsts make sure of Section One status... The good news continued on Sunday with the First XI defeating Belfast Harlequins to secure their Section One status for next season at the cost their rivals on the day. Having defeated Lurgan the day before, a win for Harlequins would have forced a relegation play-off between the two teams but a solid 77 run victory by the lads made a further match unnecessary. With a crowd of a couple of hundred at Middle Road, Shane Singe's 99 not out and Benny Clement's 39 helped set up a solid target of 194 for 5 on a relatively slow outfield. Bowling contributions of 4 for 34 from David hobson and 3 for 6 from Craig Hamilton saw Harlequins dismissed for 117. In what has been a wonderfully tight and exciting close to the Section One season, Sunday's win saw Carrickfergus end the season tied on points with no fewer than three other teams and only one victory away from fifth placed Downpatrick. Our warmest congratulations to everyone involved with the Firsts this season. Here's hoping that the consolidation of this season provides a solid platform upon which to build for next year. 07/09/2004 07/09/2004 Third XI title secures Section One cricket... Congratulations to Matt Anthony's Third XI who last weekend secured the Division 3 Section 2 Championship and promotion to Division 3's top flight. Their defeat of Cooke Collegians saw them out of reach of Lurgan III's who were their closest rivals for the title. The Cooke Collegians match also saw a continuation to Alex Adam's inspirational comeback, top scoring for his team with a match-winning 44. Great to see Alex back knocking them off... Hearty congratulations to Matt and his team on their victory and here's to another good night at the NCU dinner! 07/09/2004 Shane makes Auckland Development XI... According to the man himself, this is old news but, for anyone not aware, our own Shane has made the Auckland Winter Development squad. Shane, of course, made his state debut last year for the Auckland Aces but his presence in the development squad surely points to the selectors continuing recognition of his his potential at the highest level and hopefully he will have many more appearances for the Aces under his belt before the winter is out. Harbs is, of course, currently back with us in Carrickfergus, having stepped into the breach after AB de Villier's early departure from the Club. AB's incredible form with the bat, not surprisingly, caught the eyes of the South Africa hierarchy and led to a call-up to the South Africa A team. The Committee approached Shane to see whether he would be interested in returning to the Club for a further spell to help in these difficult circumstances with a tight league run-in ahead. To his eternal credit, Harbs moved heaven and earth to come back to the Club for another stint and our sincere gratitude goes to him for making this effort on our behalf. His knock of 99 not out on Saturday was instrumental in helping to secure continuing Section One cricket next season. Shane is hanging around with us for a couple of weeks yet but I am sure we would all take this opportunity to thank him for the efforts he made to make a further stint with us possible and wish him well for the upcoming season with the Auckland Aces. 07/09/2004 Apologies for recent website downtime... Some of our more regular visitors may have noticed that there have been some availability problems with the website on and off over the last week or more. We have been doing our best to get to the bottom of this and have discussed the situation with our hosting prioviders Eyota Technologies and they have said that they are in the process of moving hosted websites to more powerful server systems but were unaware of problems with existing services. They have now worked to resolve the situation and we are hopeful that this should spell an end to the recent problems with downtime. The problems, of course, could not have come at a worse time for us with the exciting news of the First XI securing continued Section One status on Sunday past and the Third XI securing the Division 3 Section 2 championship the weekend before, so our apologies to anyone looking out for updated news and, rest assured, we will try to ensure that the website remains available as far as possible during our webhosts server move. 19/08/2004 AB de Villiers stars for South Africa A... In a stunning debut match for South Africa A, AB turned out to be the star of the show and was instrumental in the 7 wicket defeat of Zimbabwe A in Bulawayo which ended on Saturday. AB contributed 91 (135 balls) of South Africa's 307 first innings reply to the Zimbabwe total of 186 and then went on to score 84 (99 balls) of their 168 second innings total to overhaul the Zimbabwe XI. A full match scorecard can be found here and a match report can be read here. Our warmest congratulationms to AB on a dream debut which sees him continue the rich vein of form displayed throughout his time at Carrickfergus this summer. Speaking of AB, our thanks to Bertie Martin for sending through some snaps from the recent Instonians match (24/07/04) in which AB smashed his second undefeated century in as many weeks! Some nice action shots can be found here. 27/07/2004 Andre Adams signed by Essex... The Club was delighted to hear news of popular Kiwi former pro, Andre Adams, being snapped up by Essex for the remainder of the season. (Read the full story here). Andre had been playing Lancashire league cricket before being called up by the New Zealanders for the recent NatWest series. He stayed on in England after the departure of the touring side and was signed by Essex as their second overseas player. Their signing of the now experienced international one day all-rounder has already paid dividends as he thrashed 124 off just 91 deliveries batting at number 9 in Essex's first innings in the County Championship match against Leicestershire which finished on Saturday, (see here for the full scorecard). He also chipped in with a few wickets to help Essex to a 48 run victory. Here's hoping his successful start with the county continues apace... 25/07/2004 AB selected for South Africa A... Our warmest congratualations go to Club pro AB de Villiers who has been selected for South Africa A for their forthcoming tour to Zimbabwe. The tour takes place during the first three weeks in August, and will be followed by a home series against New Zealand A in September. Details of the upcoming Zimbabwe tour can be found here. AB will obvously be a massive loss to Carrick, particularly in light of his recent stunning run of form, although he has not ruled out a few more appearances for the club between the two tours. The Club wishes AB well in what we are sure will be a long and productive international career. 25/07/2004 Don't forget Carrick Times for reports... Just a quick reminder to check out the match reports at the great Carrick Times website. Submitted by our own Roger Bell, the reports are always extremely informative and entertaining and are a fantastic way to keep in touch with recent performances first-hand, particularly for those farther afield. Recent reports currently on the site include the excellent victory over Waringstown with Eagy's devastating opening spell and Coop's century, a great description of the havoc caused by AB in the recent match against Cliftonville and comment from our own Club captain on that match. 13/06/2004 Carrick young players' representative honours... Our congratulations go to to a couple of our young players on their selection for youth representative duties. Anthony Martin has made the Ulster Schools XI, representing local school Downshire, to play MCC this Tuesday (5th June) at Cambpell College, while David Robinson has been selected for the Under 15 NCU squad for the upcoming Interprovincial Series taking place in Dublin from the 3oth June to the 2nd July. We wish both of the lads all the best in their respective matches. Ulster Schools XI v MCC Squad NCU Under 15 Squad 29/04/2004 Eagy in Ireland squad and Andre evil twin... A couple of stories in brief that Phil McKnight fired across links to. Club skipper Ryan Eagleson has again deservedly made the Ireland squad for the upcoming Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy 2nd Round match against Surrey at Clontarf on Wednesday 5th May. Full details on the match and the squad are available here. Another link of note is the shock story that former pro and now New Zealand Test and One Day star Andre Adams has discovered a secret evil twin can be found here. 24/04/2004 AB de Villiers picks up prestigious gong... As reported on BBC Sport and SuperSport Zone, AB has just been honoured with the prestigious Domestic Newcomer of the Year Award at the inaugaral South African Cricket Awards for his performances for Titans this year. Highlights of his domestic performances included an innings 99 in the Standard Bank Cup semi-final and also a man-of-the-match performance for his 75 off 83 balls in a friendly against the world-famous Lashings XI, whose bowling line-up included, amongst others, Curtley Ambrose, Shane Warne, Allan Donald, and Shaun Pollock! AB was in good company at the awards with South Africa Test star Jacques Kallis, who picked up 4 international awards, and Lance Klusener, Makhaya Ntini, and Jacques Rudolph also amongst the awards. With AB arriving soon, those wishing to find out a little more about him might also want to check out this article in South Africa's best-selling Sunday Times. Thanks go to Roger and Phil McKnight for the links above. 22/04/2004 Club extension info available... The Management Committee recently approved a £100,000 major clubhouse extension as part of our ongoing development plan. See the Development Pages for the full story and some artists impressions of how the extension will look. A PDF of the plans will be made available over the next day or two. 22/04/2004 Site update complete... We have recently completed a major site update in preparation for the new season. Our thanks go to Roger for scouring the site to identify out of date info and areas in need of refresh. Areas tidied up include the addition of youth fixtures, a refresh of the links, contacts and sponsorship pages, and an update to the Club development pages to reflect recent developments (see top story for further info). The major update, however, has been to the results engine. We have now managed to implement the long-awaited additions to the results archive. Match summaries for minor and youth teams can now be posted via our administration section which should lead to faster posting of this information. Additionally, this has allowed us to archive the remaining minor team results from the latest results page. Perhaps more importantly, however, given the great support for the website from our younger members, the results engine has been updated to allow youth match summaries to be fully searched. As a side note, the work going into the result engine has made it difficult to maintain the news pages with as much frequency as possible over the last month or two and my humble apologies go to regular visitors for the lull. Please do notify us if you spot any problems over the coming weeks as we rely on you to help make the site better in this regard. The site also hit a significant benchmark in the last month or so reaching the 100,000 page views mark. This means that we have now delivered more than 100,000 pages to visitors since the site was set up back in November 2001. Our continued appreciation to all of our regular viewers for supporting us so well over the last 2 1/2 years. Anyone who is interested can get further details by clicking on the visitor number on the home page. 22/04/2004 Familiar faces returned and returning... It's that time of year when we begin to see the return of the Armada! Ryan has recently returned after another wonderful season in Hong Kong. Shane 'Harbs' Singe has also made a welcome return to join us for a visit of a month or so and will be playing for the Club during his stay. A couple of older faces are also around or soon to be around. Jared Mansfield is currently in town staying with his in-laws. And those of us of a certain age will be delighted to hear the news from Roger that the legendary Snehal Parikh is set to visit Carrickfergus from the 19-31 May. Snehal has stayed in constant touch with the Club's progress since he left us after a three season stint in the mid-late 1980's and it is wonderful news to hear that he will get an opportunity to watch the Club he served so well performing in the top flight for the first time. 22/02/2004 AB de Villiers Signs as 2004 Pro... The pro for the coming season has now been confirmed as Araham Benjamin de Villiers. A rising young star on the South African cricket scene, "AB" is a highly rated wicketkeeper/batsman who has come with the highest possible recommendations. Further details on AB are available here. 17/01/04 Junior team captains appointed... The captaincies of the Second, Third and Fourth XI teams were decided at the monthly Management Committee meeting on Wednesday 14th January. The positions have been filled as follows: Second XI Steven Kane Third XI Matt Anthony Snr Fourth XI Tomi Humphries Alex Adams will, again, assist with the captaincy of the Second XI and his vast experience of captaincy at this level will undoubtedly be valuable to Steven Kane in his first year as a captain outside of youth team cricket. Additionally, Jim Nelson has agreed to assist Matt Anthony with the captaincy of the Third XI, covering weekends when Matt has work commitments. Ful contact details for team captains have now been updated and are available here. Our best wishes go to all the newly appointed captains and we wish them well with their efforts over the coming season. 05/01/2004 League table archive updated with 2003 tables... The league table archives have now been updated to reflect the final standings for 2003 in a season which, of course, saw the First XI crowned Section Two Champions and which saw our other XI's consolidate their positions in their respective leagues. 05/01/2004 Second, Third & Fourth XI fixtures now available... The fixture lists have now been updated to include all First, Second, Third and Fourth XI league ties as well as cup fixtures for all of the men's teams. Youth team fixture lists will be added when these are released... 05/01/2004 League table archive updated with 2003 tables... The league table archives have now been updated to reflect the final standings for 2003 in a season which, of course, saw the First XI crowned Section Two Champions and which saw our other XI's consolidate their positions in their respective leagues.