Sandiacre can’t claim third title as they’re second best
BATH RECOVER FROM BAD START TO TAKE HONOURS
SANDIACRE Town will have to wait if they are to win a third ECB National Club Cricket title, after being comprehensively beaten by 81 runs by Bath in the glorious surroundings of the Wormsley cricket ground in Buckinghamshire.
For Bath, beaten by Sandiacre in 2003 and twice in finals of this competition since, it was a longer wait and they thoroughly deserved their triumph, first setting a competitive score and then defending it with a fine bowling and fielding performance.
At 9-2 from five overs when they had won the toss and chosen to bat, Bath were being outplayed in the game.
It looked honours even at halfway, after a Bath innings which ebbed and flowed.
Sandiacre got off to a perfect start when Dan Wheeldon found Tim Rouse’s edge in the third over and Ryan McFadyean produced a beauty to bowl Ashur Morrison for a duck in the next over.
Bath had to rebuild and did so, as opener Bradley Porteous and the more aggressive Sam Young added 71 for the third wicket.
It was the ninth over before they scored their first boundary and Wheeldon rested with 1-15 from six overs.
Young was determined to break the shackles, though, and hit John Jordison for a sumptuous off-driven four. He then hit McFadyean off his legs and then through point for fours before lifting Jordison for a straight six.
Spinner Connor Marshall reined Bath in with a tidy spell and enjoyed a big celebration when he trapped Porteous in front for 34.
Marshall’s first three overs cost only five but Young hit Jordison for another six and moved to 50 from 52 balls with a glance for two to third man off Matt Newbold, who he hit for his third six.
At 123-3 in the 25th over, Bath now had a platform and Paul Muchall began to look dangerous until he mishit Newbold to Wheeldon after he and Young had added 62.
Marshall completed an excellent spell of 1-21 and when Chris McIlroy replaced him, he had Sam Mount well taken at long off by Jake Needham.
Young edged Newbold for four at the start of the 33rd over but a swing and miss next ball and he was gone for a superb 78 from 83 balls, with six fours and three sixes. It had been an ideal mix of defence and aggression from the Bath man.
Kyle Hopper chipped Newbold to Luke Thomas at mid on in the same over. Wicketkeeper Jack Scrivens
added useful runs in the closing overs, with 34 from 35 balls, although Sandiacre largely kept them tight and Anderson secured an eighth wicket with a direct hit as Bath tried to run on a wide.
Sandiacre had fielded well and could feel they had done a good job – but Bath’s 220-8 looked competitive.
It looked more so in the first over when James Chapman, fresh from a century in the league the previous day, timed a shot through midwicket for four in the first over but edged George Axtell into the slips from the last ball of the over.
Luke Thomas cover drove Muchall up the slope towards the pavilion for four and Scott McNeill likewise with a more lavish drive but they were having to take care in the early overs, reaching 22-1 from the first six
before Thomas flashed at one from Axtell and was caught behind in the seventh.
McIlroy cut a crisp four in the ninth over off Axtell but gloved an attempted pull high to point two balls later and was relieved to see the simplest of chances dropped.
It had been a tough first 10 overs for Sandiacre, in which they had reached 39-2 and they were in more trouble in the 12th when James Arney bowled McIlroy for eight.
McNeill’s response, after surviving a big lbw shout against Porteous, was to pull him for four and six in the 13th over.
Needham did not last long, also surviving a loud leg before appeal against Arney but edging the next ball to Scrivens for a duck to make Sandiacre 57-4.
They were under the cosh and
McNeill had a life, dropped low down at slip by Morrison off Arney, who was really charging in.
McNeill was, nonetheless going along at a run a ball and needed someone to stay with him.
Just as it began to look as if Marshall might do so, he and McNeill hesitated but took on a tight second run to midwicket and Marshall’s dive did not beat the throw from Young. The wicket brought the drinks break four balls early at 76-5 in the 20th over and the final was slipping away from Sandiacre.
McNeill and Anderson spent a time, until the end of Arney’s superb spell of 2-22, unable to do more than push a few singles as the required rate climbed, before McNeill reached 50 from 58 balls and was dropped in the deep after aiming a big hit at the next ball.
At 94-5 from 25 overs, Sandiacre needed an unlikely 127 from 15 overs and that became 95-6 when Anderson was caught behind off Muchall for seven in the next over.
The only real hope left, with the rate getting above 10 an over, was that Wheeldon might be able to embark on one of his occasional sixhitting bonanzas but the bowling was a bit too keen and the field a bit too big for that and he was bowled for 12 by Rouse, tellingly, only the second Sandiacre man in double figures.
The end came quickly after that, with McNeil stranded on 75 not out, and, truth to tell, Sandiacre had been thoroughly outplayed.
One more decent performance on Saturday, and they will have the Derbyshire Premier Division title for a consolation.