IPSWICH School's cricketers got in some valuable pre-season experience on four-day cricket tour to Dublin. In the course of the tour, they played two fixtures against Irish sides, winning one and drawing the other.

IPSWICH School's cricketers got in some valuable pre-season experience on four-day cricket tour to Dublin. In the course of the tour, they played two fixtures against Irish sides, winning one and drawing the other.

The first fixture was against a well-fancied school side, Wesley College. On a slow, drying wicket batting looked difficult but Howard Knights, making his debut for Ipswich School's 1st XI, notched up 53 and Tobias Hembry, having been dropped on four, went on to score 90.

Chasing a total of 181, the Wesley batsmen demonstrated considerable class and it took good quality bowling (Tim Caston took five wickets) and fielding (Knights made three catches) to secure a victory.

In the idyllic surroundings of Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university and one where English traditions survive, the tourists took on the university's 1st XI in front of a sizeable and increasingly boisterous crowd of students.

Ipswich School bowled first and early breakthroughs by Caston (four wickets) and James Wright raised their hopes.

Despite captain Ian Swallow taking a further two wickets, the Irish side set the visitors a total of 174 to win.

The Ipswich top order batsmen left much of this task to the middle order. Despite good efforts with the bat by Green and Caston (34 each) and Ben Payne's dogged refusal to yield his wicket, the match ended in a draw with Ipswich School on 154 for 9.