Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2017

38 Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society twitter: @scloverssociety An all too familiar sight this season at cricket throughout Yorkshire has been the dreaded covers on and the patter of rain on the ground. However this didn’t dampen spirits at Sheffield Collegiate when the rain did stop we saw some fantastic performances and team success. Our 1st XI played in the newly formed Yorkshire South Premier League and enjoyed a good season finishing 5th overall and only one win from 3rd place. In the National Club T20 the team enjoyed a fantastic run. Our first match day took place at Aston Hall and our first game saw us take on the hosts, the game was reduced to 15 overs a-side thanks to a little rain and we produced an fantastic fielding display restricting Aston Hall to just 54-6, Alex Varley bowling 3 overs for just 5 runs. We knocked it off in just 7.1 overs 2 down with Danny Walton 29*. This meant we took on Doncaster who had beaten Sheffield and Phoenix United but somewhat predictably the weather closed in again and it rained! This meant we had to take part in a bowl off. This proved that we all didn’t bowl as straight as we thought with 32 deliveries being bowled and only 5 hits between both teams! Fortunately it was 3 – 2 to us with Alex Varley and Ben Fielding the successful bowlers. This meant we went on to the Yorkshire League area finals where we took on Wickersley in the semi-final. Again we fielded first and again we produced a superb fielding display keeping Wickersley to just 101 all out in the final over of their innings. The pick of the bowlers this time was William Root with 4 wickets for just 11 runs in his 4 overs. It was also Billy who was the star with the bat making 41* as we reached our target 4 down with 3 overs to spare. So we were through to the YSPL T20 Final where we met local rivals Hallam. Hallam won the toss and elected to field first, what happened next was a masterclass in T20 batting. Ex Yorkshire wicket keeper Simon Guy went out to open the batting with Danny Walton and straight away took the attack to Hallam pulling the first ball for 4. This set the tone for the innings and for Simon himself who took on the bowling, hitting the bad ball to the boundary and running superbly, regularly taking 2s to the boundary riders. In his innings there were fifteen 4s and one 6 as he reached 100 off just 55 balls. Other contributions from our top 4 including 40* off just 26 balls from Billy Root, meant we finished on 200 – 3. The talk in the changing room was this is only half the job done, we need to do the second half just as well. We did this with Alex Varley once again setting the tone with the new ball going for just 21 in 4 overs. Pace off the ball seemed to work with Billy Root and Ben Fielding both bowling their 4 overs with Ben taking 3 – 22. This meant we went onto the North Area Finals’ day where we took on Sleaford in the semi-final. We won the toss and chose to bat and were in trouble early at 10 – 3. Billy Root and Danny Walton steadied the ship before Billy went leaving us 47-4. Enter Mike Simpson. In a superb display of power hitting Mike smashed three 4s and nine 6s in a sensational 81 from just 45 balls. We finished on 164-6 a fantastic recovery from 10-3. Sleaford got off to an excellent start with the bat and were 70-0 and we were staring down the barrel of defeat. Matt Dixon came into the attack with his leg spin and changed the game bowling his Grass Roots with Sheffield Collegiate CC