A question of title

Yesterday I drove the short distance to the lovely ground at Follifoot near Harroagte where an inter league match was scheduled between the Aire Wharf league and the Bradford Mutual Sunday School league. The second of these may be the less well known of the two but it was founded was in 1896 and a detailed history of its development can be found on its website. Today the composition of its 37 teams, divided into four groups,  reflects Bradford's multicultural population

The competition, for the West Yorkshire Area Cricket Council KO Cup, not surprisingly organised by the aforesaid council, is contested by eight leagues with the Halifax, Huddersfield Central, South Yorkshire, Dales Council, Wetherby and York and District Senior leagues being the others. The match at Follifoot was a first round (quarter final) match over forty overs..

The competition was previously known as the Leeds Invitation cup but it is also referred to by some as the' Joe Lumb'. On the Aire Wharf website I found the league's team for the match under the formal heading of the WYAC KO cup saying that 'the following...have been selected for the first Joe Lumb match'. It also said that 'the expected attire is jacket and tie'. Assuming that this did not apply to spectators and opting for not very smart casual I arrived just in time to see Aire Wharf take the field. The host team had been selected as a development team with all players under 22, but the Bradford team clearly had not been selected on this basis.

The afternoon was pleasantly warm but the type of ominous clouds which had brought the rain that washed out many of Saturday's matches soon began to build up. An interesting sideline to the cricket was provided by a red kite which several times emerged from the nearby woodland to swoop low over the ground.
Bradford lost early wickets and were soon 22 for 3 but they rallied to post 160 for 9 off their 40 overs. The last few overs of the innings were played in pouring rain and during the tea interval the umpires were left with the difficult task of interpreting the rules of the competition when weather intervenes.The ground appeared to take the rain well and there were hopes that a resumption might be possible after some mopping up. I decided to return home and as I drove away the rain returned and by the time I crossed over the A1 it had become torrential. I regret I cannot post news of the outcome, despite a trawl of the Yorkshire Post and the two leagues' and the Council's websites this morning. Similarly I have no details of individual performances for I did not like to unduly disturb the lone scorer.

A couple of weeks ago in glorious sunshine, there was a goodly gathering of pcws at Bingley for two matches in the County Second XI T20 competition. The semi finals and final of this competition are due to be played at Arundel on Friday of this week but there are still a host of qualifying matches to be played before then. The last  zone games are not played until Wednesday  so the four qualifiers for the finals may not be settled before then.

I have been banging the drum a bit for the National KO Cup and the four northern group finalists are now known. I made reference to groups 1 and 2 in Saturday's posting but the finals for groups 3 and 4 are are scheduled for this Sunday.In group 3, West Indian Cavaliers host Ockbrook and Borrowash and in group 4 Blackpool will meet Chorley.

Finally a postscript to Saturday's posting wherein I made reference to Medbourne CC and just out of interest I checked up to see how they had fared in their Northamptonshire League match on Saturday. Their opponents were Grendon for whom one of the opening bats was the former Somerset and Northants ( and at one time in his career possible England player), Roy Virgin, now in his seventies. Virgin was seventh out scoring 29 off 131 balls, not many sharp singles I suppose. The team was captained by David Virgin who I believe is Roy's son and included Matt Virgin, a grandson, all tucked away in Division 13 (sic) of the 15 teams making up the league.