After seven weeks of runs and wickets galore for the Irish in county action in England, they were brought back down to earth with a series of mediocre returns.

Tim Murtagh did take 3 for 93 and score an unbeaten 18 as Middlesex crashed to a 10 wicket loss against Yorkshire. Those wickets make him the joint leading wicket-taker in the Championship - his haul of 37 being the same as the Sussex pair of Chris Jordan and Steve Magoffin.

In the game against Surrey, Sussex skipper Ed Joyce scored 36 and 26 not out to take his Division One runs tally for the season to 518 at an average of 64.50.

Gary Wilson scored 10 as Surrey racked up 456 for 9 in the drawn game. That performance wasn't enough to satisfy the Surrey board who on Monday sacked Chris Adams and Ian Salisbury.

Graeme McCarter didn;t feature for Gloucestershire this week, while Boyd Rankin took 4-55 as Warwickshire lost to Durham by 11 runs. William Porterfield scored 24 and 0 in the low scoring affair.

The Irish skipper made just 4 in the YB40 loss to Notts, while Rankin went wicketless.

There were ducks for Niall O'Brien and Ed Joyce in the YB40, while George Dockrell didn't enjoy any success with the ball - 0-47 against the Unicorns and 0-30 versus Leicestershire.

Andrew Balbirnie was certainly a busy bee, playing six times for Middlesex 2nd XI In T20 action.

The Pembroke man made 13* and 15 against Essex, followed by 16 and 29* when they played the Unicorns. He finished strongly making 56 and 45* in the two matches against Leicestershire.

Shane Getkate and Gary Wilson were on opposite sides as MCC Young Cricketers played Surrey Seconds in T20 action. Getkate scored 2 and 6, and had figures of 0-14 and 1/26, while Wilson scored 10 and 28 as the games were shared.

Getkate had figures of 2/22 and 1/21 in games against the RAF.

Craig Young is playing as a batsman only for Brighton in the Sussex Premier League, and he scored 2 and 16 last weekend.

Ben Wylie didn't enough the greatest of games while playing for Cambridge University against old rivals Oxford - the Instonians left-armer made 0 and conceded 11 from his solitary over as his team lost by seven wickets.

Let's hope for better fortunes for the Irish contingent in the coming week!