Warwickshire Bears won the BCEW David Townley Memorial Twenty20 Cup for the fourth time in the competitions eight year history with a dominant display to comfortably see off Sussex Sharks in the final.
In extremely windy conditions Twenty20 finals day was held at Wolverhampton Cricket Club for the first time on Saturday 24th September. Whilst the weather wasn’t great the facilities & pitches at the venue were excellent & allowed for some high quality cricket, although not until the final & third place play off as both semi finals were very one sided.
The first semi final saw Warwickshire crush an under strength Metro, who with only seven players available on the day invited three Staffordshire Wolves’s players who had come along to watch to play for them instead.
The tone for the match was set when Luke Sugg bowled Metro captain Rory Field from the fourth ball of the match. Sugg proceeded to claim brilliant figures of 4-9 as well as taking a catch, Justin Hollingsworth also took two wickets & Gerald Porter claimed three catches as Metro could only limp to 40 All Out. In reply Field claimed a caught & bowled to dismiss Asif Ali but 26 not out from Sugg saw the Bears into the final thanks to a 9 wicket win with 15.2 overs to spare.
In the other semi final Cheshire Cobras took on national level opposition for the first time when they faced Sussex Sharks. A superb opening spell with the ball from Joe Harrison helped reduce Cobras to 15/4 & effectively ended the chances of them setting a troubling total. Cheshire stuck in well though & Howard Greenhill (26) batting with the stubborn Mike Harrison meant the newcomers saw out their overs finally reaching 75/8. As well as Joe Harrison’s staggering 3-4 & a catch, Ian Morris bowled well to finish with an impressive 2-19. In reply it only took Sussex openers Joe Harrison (33 not out) & Si Ledwith (26 not out) 8.5 overs to see their side to victory.
In the third place play off Metro batted first reaching 131/4 thanks in the main to 71 from Rory Field. Andy Law & Aemonn Sheering both batted determinedly to support Field as the on loan Gav Griffiths took 2-17. Field claimed an early wicket as the second innings started but then Dave Knowles (32) & Tom Kitchen (50) shared a partnership of 90 to take Cobras to the verge of a win. Field wasn’t done though & he took another two wickets & a run out to get Metro back into it with help from an excellent catch by Andy Kaustin. That was as good as it got for Metro however as Paul Knowles & Gav Griffiths guided Cheshire over the line for a 6 wicket win.
So to the final, that saw Warwickshire Bears & Sussex Sharks facing each other with the trophy on the line for the fourth time in eight years. Warwickshire took immediate control of the match as they started very fast, scoring at around ten an over. Justin Hollingsworth led the way with a fantastic 98 before falling just short of his century, caught & bowled by Jimmy Millard. Nathan Foy then played a remarkable innings that ended after just seven balls when he was also caught by Millard, this time from Ian Morris’s bowling, for 22. Luke Sugg who had shared in Bears scintillating opening stand of 183 with Justin Hollingsworth, was unbeaten on 84 when the innings came to a close with Warwickshire recording a massive 227/2.
Sussex knew that they had to get off to a fast start to have any chance of chasing the Bears total, but any hope of that was quickly extinguished as Sugg removed Si Ledwith & Ian Morris with Hollingsworth dismissing Joe Harrison to leave Sharks in a world of trouble at 10/3. A 71 run partnership from Jimmy Millard (31) & Dan Field (65) saw Sussex build a score but both fell to catches from Hollingsworth & whilst the lower order kept trying Sussex could only reach 158/8 as Luke Sugg took 4 wickets for the second time in the day.
Justin Hollingsworth & Nathan Foy won the Partially Sighted & Low Sighted Player of the Day awards respectively & were presented with their trophies by legendary former England Womens captain Baroness Rachel Heyhoe Flint.
BCEW would like to thank everyone at Wolverhampton CC who helped make the event so successful. Thanks also to The Primary Club without whose generous funding BCEW & our member clubs could not continue to grow the sport so successfully.