The Belvoir Sunday XI completed what has been an excellent summer with a final match victory over Buckminster and Barrowby.
After a minutes silence in memory of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II the match got underway with Buckminster winning the toss and electing to bat first. I think it is safe to say that this was the youngest ever side to represent Belvoir in an Adult fixture with skipper Tommy Bealby the oldest at 17 yrs 11 months !
The Belvoir opening attack of Olly Poole and Rowan Tyler made early inroads bagging an opener a piece with only 10 runs on the board. However a Buckminster counter attack, led by keeper Ben Warner saw the home side reach 94-3 in fairly quick time. Some fine catching by Alfie White and Jacob Marshall-Taylor off the spin of Tommy Bealby and some accurate seam from Dan Wade soon got the scoreboard back under control at 120-8 with Tom Thornton coming on to take the final 2 wickets.
So needing 128 to win off 40 overs Belvoir got off to a very steady start at just above one run per over. This was an imprortant phase of the match however and Tom Thornton (32 balls) and Dom Birch (21 balls) did well to help get the shine off the new ball. The arrival of Jacob M-T at the crease saw an immediate increase in the run rate but just as he looked to be in control of the situation he fell for the leg side trap and was well caught at deep midwicket for 13. Ted Robson batting at 4 was unfortunately run out by a superb throw from the bounday which left Tommy Bealby and Gus Hagger to start a rebuild. Tommy was hitting the ball well and had made 25 from 22 balls before he fell in identical fashion to Jacob, deep on the midwicket boundary. Gus and Will Thornton then put on an invaluable 25 for the 6th wicket before both fell in quick sucession leaving 31 to win with 2 wickets left. Cometh the hour, cometh the man and Olly Poole strode to the wicket, determined to see Belvoir home. In a terrific 9th wicket stand with Alfie White (who played the Jack Leach role perfectly with 2 from 27 balls) Olly smote 31 from 27 balls including 3 fours and one towering six over long on ! The final over began with the visitors needing just one run for victory and the home side obliged by bowling a head high no ball. A slightly anti climatic end to what had been a very tight and exciting game, played in a great spirit.
So the end of a very productive season for this young side with 9 wins (including 2 friendlies) and 7 defeats. Their development throughout the season has been fantastic to watch. They have a great team spirit and play for each other which wasn’t always the case at the start of the season. Huge thanks to Scott Nicolson for his help, advice and enthusiasm in building this team.
UTB
