ENVILLE C.C. v BEWDLEY GREAT WESTERN C.C.
UMPIRES CHRIS FORREST & TONY WRIGHT
The long established against the young pretenders.
A game of contrasts. A pleasant Wednesday evening of 23 degrees contrasting with Tuesday’s Sahara Sun of 37 degrees.
The green of the wicket contrasting with the scorched yellow outfield.
The arrow straight boundary returns contrasting with the relay retrievals.
The way the exterior perimeter was overcome, an elegant vault or a roll under at ground level.
The excitement of youth compared to the ambling of age.
The league thanks Enville for hosting this final in such a beautiful and well-prepared setting. A truly social occasion with around 60 watching with beer in hand. Hopefully the hosts benefitted from the trade.
Efficient or eager to get started. Both teams approached the umpires, chatting with yours truly, handed over the fees, the team sheet and declared they had completed the toss with BGW electing to field. The game commenced at 6.23 pm.
Now for a first in a senior cup final, BGW’s secret weapon, opened the bowling (an U15, female left arm bowler whose success in the semi-final was of note).
Now another first, with special permission, her brother U13, opened from the other end. The opening pair with a combined age of under 30??????. Although their efforts resulted in a single runout, their figures were more than acceptable, a little more than a run per ball.
The run pace was similar until the last two overs which yielded 40 runs, a fact which was to prove to be decisive. Overall, the bowling was controlled, with flight rather than speed with some excellent field as horizontal bodies protected the fast outfield.
A score of 141 was posted.
Enville taking the field.
Contrast one, pace attack. Contrast two, keeper sitting on the stumps. Contrast three, early wicket. Even so the run rate recovered and increased. Punctuated by the odd wicket the game was set for an exciting finish as at the end of the 10th over BGW were 14 runs to the good but needed to come near to matching the excellent final two over acceleration produced by Enville. The last two overs, sadly for BGW, saw the runs dry up and wickets fall as they desperately attempted to make ones into twos and what promised to be a nail biting finish gently eased to a conclusion.
Delightful evening of socially acceptable village cricket. Congratulations to BGW for their success as a division A team reaching the final, for playing and encouraging youth and throwing in an antipodean. Congratulations to Enville for crowning off a most enjoyable evening as Senior Cup Winners 2022, with man of the Match Sam Tonks scoring the only 50 of the game and adding a couple of wickets to his haul.
