Dean progress to national rounds after beating Waltham

Cookham Dean have reached the national rounds of the Voneus Village Cup after beating White Waltham in an exciting Berkshire final on Sunday, writes Keith Higgins.

Chasing a target of 222, White Waltham could not quite keep up with the run rate and lost in the last over by 14 runs. White Waltham won the toss and in overcast conditions, elected to field. A tight opening spell by Luke Beard (1/27) made it difficult for the opening Cookham Dean batters to score quickly but at 72/1 in the 17th over, they looked well set for a big score. They were pegged back by three wickets in three balls, two for Dan Malloy and one for Luke Scarborough. At 89/5 in the 20th over it was anyone’s game but a superb partnership of 96 in only 44 balls between captain Greg Davis, 62, and 15 year old Alfie Agar, 30 off 26 balls, turned the game in Cookham Dean’s favour. Davis was particularly brutal, following his 148 in the last round against Sonning, and he scored his runs at exactly 2 runs per ball. He is one of the top run scorers in the whole competition with 255 runs. Three late wickets for Rahul Mohindru (above) restricted Cookham Dean to 221 all out.

Tight bowling by Cookham Dean restricted White Waltham to 77-4 in reply and this included the key wicket of captain Ben Scarborough caught by his opposite number Davis off Will Dempster for 5. A 70 run partnership for the 5th wicket between Nik Jathvedan (45) & Callum Thompson (48) meant that White Waltham were still in the game but good fast bowling by Sohil Mangat (4/36) removed both batters at key moments. White Waltham needed 22 off the last over and they were all out for 207 when man of the match Greg Davis ran out Luke Scarborough.

Cookham Dean now advance to the first of the National Rounds, as they did last year when they narrowly lost to the eventual winners, Calmore Sports.

This time they will face the winners of Winsley against Goatacre, with the latter team also previous winners of the Village Cup. Their match on Sunday was postponed due to bad weather. They'll replay it this Sunday.