Classic test
they have a four-pronged seam attack who have all topped 30 wickets.
Then, with the bat, add the Joe Carter factor to Noble’s seasonlong form and the match-winning ability of Yorkshire Academy player Ben Birkhead and overseas Devon Smith and maybe you’ve got a match on your hands.
Left-arm spinner Gurman Randhawa, himself of county pedigree, will wish to disagree having bagged a league-best 54 wickets so far at just 17.63 each as the Barnsley side have blazed a trail to the top of the Premiership table.
He will be a key figure – backed up by 29-wicket Muhammad Bilal and 27-wicket Jamie Harrison, the former Durham and Yorkshire left-arm seamer – while the hosts will be hoping their batting can deliver as they have on so many occasions this season (including the top team score of 438-6 against Broad Oak back in May).
Chris Holliday leads the way on that front, with 1,078 runs to his name at 71.87 (second only in the league to 1,200-run Mosun Hussain of Delph), but dangerous opener Gharib Nawaz has 752 runs, SP Singh 681 and talent like Randhawa, Max Joice, Ryan Robinson, Luke Potter and Adnan Ghani will look to fire further down the order.
Any of those could be a matchwinner, but Scholes have a number of their own.
Josh Brook is currently leading his brothers Louis and Tom in the wicket stakes, taking 37 so far at 19.27 with his tricky swing.
Louis has 34 at 22.03 and Tom 32 at 14.59 (to add to 302 runs with the bat), while Tom Chadwick also has 32 wickets to his name (24.09) and needs only four runs to reach 400 with the bat.
Those are impressive stats from the homegrown quartet – Birkhead’s 94 was central to Scholes’ league win at Haigh Lane when Tom and Louis Brook had three victims apiece – but maybe a touch of overseas class might tip the scales this time.
West Indies opener Smith has runs at the top of his agenda, having hit 434 at 39.45 so far, but three of his 12 off-spin wickets came against Swaine and he’s taken 15 smart catches at slip, so his all-round contribution is telling.
Then there is Carter, the class act from Northern Districts who has won the Drakes batting prize in each of his previous two seasons at Chapelgate.
Arriving late from New Zealand (Scholes also have talented all-rounder Callum Hill from that part of the world), the Englishman has scored 222 runs in his seven matches so far at 37.00 and would love a second crack at the final.
Umpires are Ron Tindall and Roger Harrison.
Scholes are also in the second semi-final of the Fired Up Paddock Shield tomorrow.
They travel to Riley Lane to take on Kirkburton for the chance to face Edgerton & Dalton first team in a home final on Sunday, August 13. Umpires for the Shield semi-final are Robert Heap and Andrew Wray.