Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2016

38 ‘Grass Roots’ Another season has been and gone at Sheffield Collegiate and it has been another great season for lots of our teams. Our 1st XI enjoyed their best run in the National Knockout competition for 15 years reaching the last 16 before been beaten by a very strong Bowden CC side. Our 2nd XI finished second in division one of the South Yorkshire league, securing promotion to the Championship. The VP’s XI season also finished on a high securing promotion to the top division of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire league. In our junior section we had a very busy season with over 200 junior members across all age groups. Our most successful junior side were the U17s who won the league and cup double, and three of that team have gone on to represent our first team on at least one occasion this season. The main focus of this article will be the cup run of our 2nd XI who this season won the YCC Supplementary Cup, and became the first team to win the trophy twice in consecutive seasons. The YCC Supplementary Cup is a competition for the teams in the second or third position in division one of their respective leagues at a given cut off point in the season. The South Yorkshire League had two teams entered, Whiston Parish Church and ourselves, and three teams from the Central Yorkshire League and the Pontefract League. The quarter final draw saw both South Yorkshire league sides drawn against one another, and with only a point separating them in the league, it promised to be a good game. SCCC won the toss and elected to field first which looked like it may be the wrong decision when Whiston were 123-3 with both openers making 32 off 28 and 21 balls! After this flyer of a start we turned to spin and this proved to be a pivotal point in the innings with the spinners taking the last 7 wickets for just 25 runs, Whiston crumbling from an excellent position to 148 all out in the 31st over. Spinners Tom Eldred and Ben Fielding did most of the damage claiming 3 for 22 and 5 for 10 respectively. We knew if we batted well we had a great chance to make it through to the semi-finals. We made just the sort of start we wanted to with openers Adrian Meadows and Andrew Stevens taking us to 59 – 1 when the latter fell caught and bowled for 3. Adrian continued to bat with confidence, but wickets continued to fall at regular intervals and we were at one stage 130 – 6, Adrian was finally trapped LBW for an excellent 82 with the score at 136-7 and cool heads from youngsters Matt Moroney and Ollie Pearson saw us through to a three wicket win, and a semi-final tie away at Liversedge CC. The night before our semi-final there was torrential rain in Sheffield and we were all a little concerned about the likelihood of play the next day even with the game being played away. However we heard nothing from our opposition the next morning so made the journey to Liversedge. We arrived to see their entire team standing around one strip in the middle all looking worried. We wandered out to the middle and one of their lads said, “I wish we had put the covers on, we had a thunder storm here last night!” To describe the pitch as wet would be an understatement, so as skipper Andy Simpson walked out to toss all of our batters were hoping they wouldn’t have to make first use of the pitch! However Simmo lost the toss and we were promptly asked to bat. A steady start with lots of ooohs and ahhhs from the fielding side meant we reached 38 for 2. Andrew Stevens had dropped to number three for this game and played beautifully on a deck offering more than a little bit to the bowlers and making 41 patiently off 97 balls. A couple more quick wickets bought skipper Andy Simpson to the middle and he took the approach that the quicker he scored his runs the less likely he was to get an unplayable ball on this surface. It paid off hitting 42 at comfortably better than a run a ball. At the end of our 45 over innings we had scored 196 for 9, a score we felt was more than competitive on this surface. At tea we were sitting eating and saw the heavy roller being used which seemed an interesting choice and not one that we would have made. If the quarter final was about our spinners in the field, this game was very much about our seamers By BEN FIELDING, SCCC Fixtures Secretary and Junior Coach Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society twitter: @scloverssociety