A truly heroic effort from 9 man Rowington saw them snatch the Preliminary League Title (North East Division) from Alcester and Ragley. We always felt the win would be possible as long as we got Alcester to bat first. Sam duly won the toss and everything started going to plan. Dale and Tom opened the bowling and the wickets quickly began to fall. As ever, the wickets were shared between the bowlers, Dale (1 for 4 off 3), Tom (2 for 12 off 3), Ben Skillings (1 for 11 off 3), Ollie Brown (0 for 9 off 3), Ollie King (1 for 24 off 3), Sam Ostler (0 for 16 off 3), Ben Brown (0 for 4 off 1) and an astonishing last over from Charlie Meadows (2 for 1 off 1) left Rowington with a very reachable 87 to win.

 

The Alcester bowlers started well but Ollie and Ollie were batting sensibly, keeping a steady 4 an over until Ollie King (8) started to panic and got himself bowled. Ben Skillings was out for a duck, hitting the ball onto his stumps but Dale (26 not out) found that Christmas had come early when he received an over of his favourite full tosses to smash the ball for 2 sixes and a four, retiring with the score on 55. Sam (10) got caught and Tom (3) and Ben Webster (0) were both bowled by the angry Alcester skipper. It was down to Charlie (1 not out) and the very young Ben Brown (3) to score the winning runs. Ben ran 2 and on the next ball went for a single before Charlie got carried away and made him run another. (Charlie we had 5 overs left to score 1 run - no need to panic next time!). So Dale came in again for the last ball of the game which Charlie duly got.

 

Final Score: Alcester and Ragley 86 for 10, Rowington 87 for 6.

 

A massive well done to the 5 boys who probably all failed their maths GCSE to play and to the other 4 who supported so superbly. We are running out of positive word to describe this awesome group of players. Brilliant! (And I was only joking - I'm sure you've all got A*s what with all those cricket scores you have to add up).