Castleford's last ball winner takes them to Headingley.

Posted by Tony Hutton

Saturday 11th September at Savile Park, Castleford for the Yorkshire Premier League Champions semi-final between the home side, champions of Yorkshire League North, and Richmondshire cricket club champions of the North Yorkshire and South Durham League. An eleven a.m. start for a game already shrouded in confusion before the start, something which continued to the final decisive over.

The Yorkshire county cricket club website, not really known for it's knowledge of league cricket, created one of it's greatest blunders by suggesting that Richmond was situated in County Durham therefore the cricket club would not be eligible to play for the Yorkshire champions trophy and their place would be taken by second club Marton. In a previous season this ruling had applied to Barnard Castle, which is in Durham, if only just to the north of the River Tees.

However Richmond, as most people know, is and always has been well within the Yorkshire boundary and is anyway somewhat to the south of Marton which scrapes in being only a short distance south of the Tees, which has always been the traditional Yorkshire boundary. Nobody seemed to be aware that another contender Appleby Frodingham are based in Lincolnshire. However enough of that as Castleford, sadly without skipper David Wainwright, won the toss and batted. A nice steady start from Chesney Hughes, once of Derbyshire, and Liam Hyde took the score to 54 before Hughes went for 33.

Chesney Hughes

Hyde was the next to go for  a solid 38, soon followed by Brayden Clarke with all three wickets to Richmondshire's Sam Wood and the total wobbling somewhat on 94-3. Wickets continued to fall and the hoped for acceleration never really came against a tight spell of spin bowling from Craig Marshall and Gary Pratt. It was only towards the end of the innings when Christopher Briggs, with a very useful 46 not out, took Cas to the respectable total of 180-7 at the end of their fifty overs.

Castleford cricket club - League champions.

Respectable, but perhaps somewhat below par, was the general consensus especially in the absence of Wainwright, but when opening bowler Matt Rees had removed both openers with the score on 22, the home side began to believe. The introduction of Chesney Hughes left arm spin, not seen much during his county days, brought the dismissal of Sam Wood and the big man then took a slip catch to remove the danger man, Gary Pratt, for only 23.

Good spin bowling from Ed Morrison and Jack Young curtailed the scoring rate as the home side chipped away at the wickets. Hughes then returned and although not really bowling well, with a number of wides, managed to dismiss two more tail enders to leave the score at 149-8. It then came down to fourteen runs required from the last two overs of the match. Richmondshire's hopes rested on their number six batsman Mathew Cowling who had already completed his fifty and looked well capable of winning the match.

Connor Hyde, who has been very economical, bowled the penultimate over which went for seven runs but importantly Cowling took a single from the last ball to retain the strike. So to the vital final over and more confusion as the digital scorer suggested that the bowler was the untried Simon Briggs, but in fact Castleford's veteran acting skipper Andrew Bourke has entrusted it to Chesney Hughes, which might have been seen as something of a gamble.

So Hughes to Cowling, already well set on 61 not out. Amazingly the first three balls were all dots - no runs scored, still seven wanted. Cowling then scored a four from the fourth ball, which Hughes followed by bowling a wide, so now two required from two balls. Cowling goes for glory with a big hit and is caught by Matthew Rees on the boundary! The batsmen crossed, so number ten Craig Marshall needs two runs to win the game from the very last ball of the match, but to the home side's delight Chesney Hughes hits the off stump to clean bowl him and Castleford win by one run.

Castleford celebrate.

A truly remarkable game of cricket which sees them now play Bradford League champions Woodlands at Headingley on Saturday next 18th September at 10.30 a.m. Woodlands also had a close game to beat Yorkshire League South champions Appleby Frodingham by two wickets, thanks mainly to their New Zealand batsman Brad Schmulian, who by now has returned home and will miss the final. However good news for Cas is that David Wainwright should return.

Saturday's final.

One other item of news from the Yorkshire League North is that they will have an odd number of teams next season with both Beverley Town and Sessay promoted although only one team has been relegated. This is understood to be because until the late withdrawal from this season's fixtures of the Yorkshire Academy the teams in the York Senior League had played on the understanding that two teams would be promoted and this has been maintained.