1st NatWest U19 Club T20 Competition a Success.....
Bishop's Stortford Sabres defeated Harpenden by 4 wickets in the Final of the Inaugural Hertfordshire NatWest U19 Club T20 competition.
Finals Day, held at Welwyn Garden City Cricket Club and supported by the ECB's NatWest T20 Blast Experience, was a fitting end to the competition which has been running since June.
The competition was a huge success in its first year, with 12 clubs entering and competing in group games decided by geography in order to make it easier to get games on during the summer weeknights. The clubs were sent lots of information on how to make the games they took part in replicate the T20 Blast experience seen on TV during the summer. All the clubs embraced these ideas with coloured kits, sound clouds, party atmospheres and BBQ food aplenty at the games that took place.
The league format concluded at the end of August with the winners of each group progressing to finals day. The winners of each group were as follows;
Hertford - Group A
Redbourn - Group B
Bishop Stortford - Group C
Harpenden - Group D
We were lucky enough to be given extra resources by the ECB in order to make our finals day an even better experience, with boundary markers, pitch mats, stage backdrop, and stumps in place. The teams turned up and were immediately impressed and enthused by the setting created at Welwyn Garden City Cricket Club, who worked extremely hard to make sure the ground looked good, as well as preparing a fantastic pitch to use on the day. A huge thanks to everyone at Welwyn Garden City Cricket Club for their hard work.
Our first semi final was between Hertford and Harpenden, and a quickfire 50 for Dan Bradley meant the Group D winners posted an impressive score of 169 in 16 overs. This was always going to be tough to chase, and Hertford fell short meaning Harpenden were our first finalists of the day!
Our second semi final was between the Stortford Sabres and Redbourn Unicorns! Redbourn batted first and batted well, posting 153 on the board at the half way stage.
Stortford got off to a good start with 50 from Ryan Wells, and the good start was enough to keep them up with the rate throughout and win by 7 wickets to set up the final versus Harpenden.
Stortford won the toss and elected to field, the tension was building at the ground with plenty of people there to watch enjoying the BBQ and drinks flowing from the bar for spectators, as well as music playing regularly to create a real T20 Blast atmosphere.
Stortford took to the field and bowled well to restrict Harpenden in the first 10 overs to 57-3 at the half way stage. Some explosive batting towards the end got Harpenden up to 153-8 from their 20 overs.
Stortford again started well, again thanks to a fantastic innings from Ryan Wells who retired on 50. Despite some wickets in the middle overs, Stortford held on to become our first ever U19 T20 Champions!
For Pictures from the event, please click the link below.
U19 T20 - Facebook Photo Album
I would like to thank again Welwyn Garden City for all their work preparing the ground on the day, as well as our three umpires Nick Hall, Tim Calidcott and Brendan Jones. Finally a thanks to all four teams who took part in finals day for playing in a great spirit with smiles on faces throughout.
Bring on the 2016 Competition!