Ireland Wolves v Namibia 5th One-Day Review: Gareth Delany's century pushes his side over the line in final ODI

WINDHOEK, Namibia – Gareth Delany scored a century and claimed a 5-wicket haul in a remarkable all-round display, helping the Ireland Wolves to a victory and squaring the One-Day series at the Wanderers Cricket Ground.

Delany 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 – then 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 scored a total of 282 runs (25, 72, 81, and 104) averaging 70.50 across the four One-Day games of this series.

On what looked like a good batting wicket, Wolves captain Neil Rock decided to bat first after winning the toss. James McCollum (0) fell early before Murray Commins and Stephen Doheny combined for 55 runs for the second wicket to stabilize the innings.

However, Commins (28) fell shortly after, trapped lbw by Shikongo, and he was followed quickly by Matt Ford (0) with the Wolves now looking in trouble on 56-3.

Stephen Doheny (36) was next to go after a short delivery from JJ Smit had him on the back foot, only for the ball to hit his glove and then fall on the stumps.

Then, in a similar fashion to Sunday’s game, Delany came to the crease in a determined fashion and settled quickly. He built up a nice partnership of 29 with Jeremy Lawlor, before Lawlor (30) was caught behind, flicking one to the wicketkeeper in the 30th over.

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 didn’t allow Namibia to build any early partnerships with Graham Hume (1-37), Fionn Hand (2-56), and Delany taking early wickets to have Namibia 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 to bring up his five-for from his allotted ten overs. He was ably assisted by some excellent fielding by Stephen Doheny and Jeremy Lawlor – Lawlor in particular with a superb full-length diving catch in the air to dismiss Frylinck.

At 112-7, the Wolves’ bowlers began to tire and Ruben Trumplemann (67) and Dylan Leicher (46) struck a solid 8th wicket partnership of 106 late in the game to put the pressure on 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 Gareth 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. It’s a bit of a pity we don’t have a decider, but I think we’ve played some good cricket over the last few weeks, and credit to Namibia they’ve us very hard.”

MATCH SUMMARY

Ireland Wolves v Namibia Men, 5th One-Day game, Windhoek, 5 April 2022

Wolves 252-7 (50 overs; G Delany 104, S Doheny 36; J Frylinck 3-50)

Namibia 230 (48.3 overs; R Trumplemann 67, D Leicher 46; G Delany 5-39)

Ireland Wolves won by 22 runs