Arthington 1st XI – 109/3 13.4 overs	107/7 – Scalby 1st XI 20 overs
Alex O’Neil: 52 Himanshu Satyawan: 19	Naveed Andrabi: 4-0-17-2 Inam Piran: 4-0-23-2

 

In a break from league action, throughout the course of the already successful season, the Arthington 1st XI had managed to reach the final of the Edward Readman Memorial Trophy. Their opponents in the culmination of an enjoyable 20-over competition were Scalby CC who, like Arthington, were newcomers to the YPLN and were also flying high at the top of their division.

 

The rain from the previous day had relented and allowed for a full match to take place. Arthington captain Naveed Andrabi won the toss and opted to bowl first for the second time in two days. While the two teams may have been evenly matched on paper, based on league position and the previous matches in the tournament to date, the start made by Arthington’s bowlers soon had them on the front foot.

 

From just the second ball of the innings, the Scalby openers attempted a single but the ball was pounced upon by Kamrosh Khan at point who threw to the non-striker’s end for Umar Farooq to remove the bails and take the first wicket. With the final ball of the second over, bowled by Inam Piran, the remaining opener played at a delivery outside the line of off-stump and only managed an edge through to wicketkeeper Himanshu Satyawan. Both of the Scalby openers were removed for just nine runs.

The pressure did not let up either, with all of Arthington’s bowlers keeping things tight. Brahm Singh came on to replace Farooq and found the stumps with just his second ball and leave Scalby floundering at 26/3. A recovery was required and was also provided by the Scalby middle order, as it was another nine overs before the fourth wicket fell. However, despite the lack of a breakthrough, the Arthington bowlers continued to build the pressure and did not allow the scoring rate to get out of hand at all.

 

The restrictive nature of the economical Arthington bowling eventually told, with the captain himself toppling the stumps as the batsman attempted to break the shackles. Andrabi then took a wicket during his next over as well, this time assisted by Satyawan behind the stumps for his second dismissal when the Scalby batsman wafted at a wide delivery which found the edge of his bat. With two overs to go in the innings, Scalby were 84/5, surely some way short of their desired total.

 

Farooq and Piran returned for six balls apiece to round off the innings. In the penultimate over, the ball was played wide of long-off and the batsmen easily made the first run and attempted a second, but a throw from the boundary edge by Naveed Andrabi was sufficiently accurate to once again allow Umar Farooq to remove the bails for the second run out of the innings. Then, in the final over, Inam Piran picked up his second wicket with a trademark dismantling of the stumps as the ball crashed into middle.

The Scalby innings ended on 102/7, but due to a penalty being applied for a slow over rate, which seemed slightly harsh due to the size of the outfield and the frequent change of batsmen, a further five penalty runs were added, meaning that Arthington required 108 runs for victory from their 20 overs.

 

Owing to an excellent run of form in the 2nd XI and his fondness of the T20 format, Alex O’Neil was given the chance at the top of the order for the 1st XI alongside regular 1st XI opener Hari Krishan. After a cautious first over, which went for just two, O’Neil soon began hitting boundaries with regularity, taking a four and a six from the second over, a pair of boundaries from the third, followed by a six and two fours from the fourth.

 

Such a blistering start to the innings meant that after the first four overs, Arthington were already 42/0 and in full control of the chase. As perhaps expected, there was a slight deceleration following the end of the five-over powerplay, with more fielders allowed to patrol the boundary edges, but it only took until the eighth over for O’Neil to bring up his half-century, taking just 25 balls to reach the milestone with a two. Despite the large outfield, the Arthington opener managed 6 fours and 3 sixes, which were particularly significant, as Scalby had only managed 5 fours across their entire innings.

Unfortunately, only one single was added to his score before O’Neil lost his wicket, mis-reading the spinner to be bowled for a superb 52. Krishan had only reached 12 runs at this point but did manage a few more following the first wicket. At the start of the tenth over, however, he lost his wicket as well, charging down the wicket to the Scalby bowler and captain to be easily stumped. Despite the two openers falling, it was clear that their job had been done as Arthington reached the halfway stage of the innings on 81/2, needing just 27 more runs to win from 60 balls.

 

Arthington’s captain Naveed Andrabi along with Himanshu Satyawan brought them to the brink of victory, with Himanshu continuing where O’Neil left off with a couple of fours and a six in his short innings, but with the trophy just one boundary away, he, too, was stumped. Andrabi was also close to losing his wicket with what turned out to be the final delivery of the contest, when he bludgeoned a ball deep into the leg-side. The fielder failed to take a difficult catch, however, and to add insult to injury allowed the ball across the boundary line for a four.

 

Arthington won the final by seven wickets with 6.2 overs to spare. This was a dominant victory, set up by an outstanding display of disciplined bowling by all of the Arthington bowling options, none of whom conceded more than six runs per over. The fielding was also impressive, despite a couple of half-chances being put down at long-on. These two elements paved the way for man of the match Alex O’Neil to ruthlessly take the game away from Scalby with some powerful boundary hitting, taking full advantage of the powerplay and allowing the remaining Arthington batsman to cruise to victory.

The Arthington 1st XI will now aim to secure a league and cup double by securing victory against Thorp Arch & Boston Spa in their next league fixture.