With the ground in pristine shape and near perfect weather conditions at an omnipresence throughout the day, this Bank Holiday Monday simply had cricket written all over it.
Before the game started, a minutes silence was held after news came in of the tragic bombings in Sri Lanka earlier that morning.
It was the clubs first game of the season as captain Gavin Devereux lead his troops out to the Manor Fields aiming to continue his sides great run of form from pre-season against the newly formed County Kerry 4 side.
Limerick 4 won the inaugural Munster Division 3 league last year and so, were in search of kickstarting their campaign by claiming full points in their opening fixture as they went in search of back to back Munster Division 3 titles.
County Kerry won the toss and elected to field which meant Limerick could pile runs on in the first innings in order to give the opposition a massive run chase to surmount.
The opening pair of Ajay Hari and Yahya Mohammedi put on a decent stand of 41 for the first wicket before Kerry made the breakthrough just after the tenth over.
Ajay’s score of 30 runs off 38 balls would be the highest individual total for Limerick that day. Limerick pushed on after the drinks break with some decent contributions all the way down to the tail, eventually finishing on 167-8 from their 40 overs, usually a par score for Adare.
This score was indeed very sizeable as Limerick were rampant with the new ball. Mohan Prasad started the innings in remarkable fashion, taking Kerry’s first three wickets inside the opening 6 overs.
Pritiv Mohan, the other opening bowler, soon got his account of wickets for the year up and running he forced the edge which was taken by Darren Cheatley in the slips, leaving Kerry in big trouble and struggling at 18-4.
Kerry struggled to build any momentum in their middle order as the Limerick bowlers continued to take wickets and dismantle any opposition partnership. Darren was brought on later in the innings to pick up two more wickets.
Gurpreet Singh on debut also picked up two wickets to leave Kerry stranded at 62-9 at drinks after 20 overs, an immense effort from Limerick in the field to restrict their opponents and leaving them just one wicket shy of victory.
It wasn’t long before Limerick wrapped it up as John Daly was too quick for the batsman as his throw to the bowler’s end was on the money with the batsman well short of his ground; Kerry finishing 71 all out and Limerick winning by a total of 96 runs.
This margin of victory ensure Limerick picked up the full points (20 for the win + 5 bonus points by winning by more than 75 runs) and go into the next run of games as table toppers of Munster Division 2.
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