Welsh Indoor Cricket Finals – 29^th January 2023:

 
 
Venue: Morriston Leisure Centre
Umpires: Sean Evans & Rhodri Jones
Neyland scorer: Kacey Arran
Team manager: Martin Jones
 
Congratulations to Neyland Cricket Club on their remarkable feat of being Welsh Indoor Cricket Champions for the NINTH time in the past 12 years, with this year’s title coming on Sunday, 29^th January as they travelled to Morriston Leisure Centre and easily beat Pentyrch CC (Cardiff) and then showed their commitment in beating Ynystawe (Swansea) on their home territory.
 
The games were played on a round-robin basis after Newport Fugitives, the Gwent champions, dropped out the day before, and Neyland made a great start by bowling out Pentyrch cheaply and then strolling home with wickets and overs to spare.
 
Their victory over Ynystawe showed what a great team Neyland have as they played in totally different circumstances from the superb conditions at The Hub Community Centre in Neyland.
 
The games were played over 12 overs, rather than the ten in Pembrokeshire, the hall was far smaller so there were far fewer chances to run threes and they had to adapt their tactics, played on a mat which encouraged a great deal of bounce and Ynystawe included quality players like Josef Davies, who played for Ammanford and Minor Counties last season but is joining Ynystawe after they gained promotion to the top division of Welsh Cricket.
 
This game saw Paul Murray batting alone at the finish and managing to reach the target set by Ynystawe – and finishing things off in style with a boundary!
 


 

Match One:

 

Neyland show their talents early on

 

Pentyrch (55 all out) lost to Neyland (56 for 2) by 4 wickets

 
Neyland started with a bang against a very experienced side they had encountered several times in previous finals – and maintained their dominance over the Cardiff winners as skipper Patrick Bellerby won the toss and elected to field first.
 
His team are adept at applying early pressure with their quality fielding and Jack John struck early as he ran out Brett Hole for a single and then had key batsman Tegh Segal (6) caught by wicketkeeper Paul Murray to leave the opposition struggling at 17 for 2 in the fourth over.
 
Then Patrick Hannon bowled Steve Grossett (2) and the overs were beginning to drain away so that although Steve Hood opened with 19 he was caught by Ashley Sutton off skipper Bellerby and Jack John completed an excellent three-over stint with 1 for 20 as he ran out John Mudge 12 in 25 balls!) and Peter Grossett (4 in 12 deliveries) to shoot Pentyrch for a meagre 55 as Patrick Hannon (1 for 15), Bellerby (1 for 9) and Sean Hannon (0 for 12) bowled tight spells, with Sean Hannon bravely bowling despite injuring his knee in the first over of the match.
 
Then Neyland showed how to bat on a difficult surface as openers Paul Murray and Bellerby put on 45 for the first wicket before the captain was caught by Mudge off Segal for 23, including one boundary but made off 23 deliveries.

Ashley Sutton (3) came and went early and Murray retired on a classy 25, made from only 13 balls and including two fours and a six – and it was left to the Hannon twins to finish the last few runs off; the winning total achieved with a massive 21 balls still in hand.
 
Scorecard:
 
Pentyrch Batting:
Steve Hood ct Ashley Sutton b Patrick Bellerby 19
Brett Hole run out 1
Tegh Segal ct Paul Murray b Jack John 6
Mike Grosset b Patrick Hannon 2
Jon Mudge run out 12
Peter Grosset run out 4
Extra 11
Total (all out) 55
 
Neyland Bowling:
Jack John 3-0-20-1; Patrick Hannon 3-0-15-1; Patrick Bellerby 3-0-9-1; Sean Hannon 3-0-12-0.
 
Neyland Batting:
Paul Murray retired 25
Patrick Bellerby ct Jon Mudge b Tegh Segal 23
Ashley Sutton ct Steve Hood b Jon Mudge 3
Patrick Hannon not out 3
Sean Hannon not out 0
Extras 2
Total (2 wickets)
 
Pentyrch Bowling:
Mike Grosset 2-0-14-0; Tegh Segal 3-0-19-1; Steve Hood 2-0-19-0; Jon Mudge 1-0-4-1; Peter Grosset 0.3-0-1-0.
 

Match Two:

 

Ynystawe 144 - Pentyrch 70

 
Playing at their home hall at Morriston Leisure Centre and well used to the tight nature of its area and the mat the game took place on, with its high bounce.
 
 Ynystawe scored massively in terms of boundaries to build a huge score and Pentyrch had no answer as they were again shot out for a relatively low score.
 
This effectively set up a straight play-off between Ynystawe and Neyland, where the home-base team probably started as slight favourites, despite their losing to Neyland in previous years.
 
 

Match Three

 

Ynystawe (81 all out) lost to Neyland (82 for 5) by 1 wicket

 
Neyland again won the toss and decided to field first and included Nick Koomen, one of the best all-rounders in the county, for the injured Sean Hannon – and Jack John again struck early by bowling Morgan Hodges for a single before Ashley Sutton caught Ynystawe captain Ceri Durke (7) off Patrick Hannon to reduce the score to 31 for 2 in the fourth over.
 
But Joe Davies was again posing a major threat as he joined forces with Gareth Bishop (22) until the latter was run out by the quick-thinking Patrick Bellerby.
 
Gethin Jones (9) was well caught by Murray off Koomen and Sam Stanway (1) was run out by Sutton.
 
But the prized wicket of Davies fell to the irrepressible youngster of the Neyland team in Jack John, caught by Koomen having stroked three sixes and two fours in his top score of 35 which helped Ynystawe to 81 all out;  not a bad score in the tense circumstances.

Neyland batted sensibly as they gave chase but they lost Bellerby (15) and Sutton (6) as tall bowler Gareth Bishop (all 6 feet 5 inches of him!) caused problems  and when Koomen (13) was run out the alarm bells began to ring, despite the fact that ace batsman Murray was still at the other end.
 
The bells rang out at fever pitch soon afterwards as Bishop had Hannon (2) caught by Durke and John departed next ball to give him fine figures of 4 for 19 – but Murray played out the hat-trick ball and set about scoring the eight runs still needed at this time.
 
The atmosphere was intense but Murray showed his innate calmness as he took four singles and then belted the winning runs straight past Durke – and his team-mates showed their delight this narrow win!
 
Scorecard:
 
Ynystawe Batting:
Morgan Hodges b Jack John 1
Ceri Durke ct Ashley Sutton b Patrick Hannon 7
Joe Davies ct Nick Koomen b Jack John 35
Gareth Bishop; run out 22
Gethin Jones ct Paul Murray b Nick Koomen 9
Sam Stanway run out 1
Extras 6
Total (all out) 81
 
Neyland Bowling:
Jack John 3-0-19-2; Patrick Hannon 3-0-27-1;  Nick Koomen 3-0-18-1; Patrick Bellerby2-0-16-0
 
Neyland Batting:
Patrick Bellerby b Gareth Bishop 15
Nick Koomen run out 13
Ashley Sutton ct Ceri Durke b Gareth Bishop 20
Paul Murray not out 29
Patrick Hannon ct Ceri Durke b Gareth Bishop 2
Jack John b Gareth Bishop 0
Extras 3
Total 5 wickets) 82
 
Ynystawe Bowling:
Ceri Durke 2.4-0-29-0; Joe Davies 3-0-21-0; Sam Stanway 2-0-21-0; Gareth Bishop 3-0-19-4.










 

And finally . . .

 
In the post-match presentations Patrick Bellerby received the cup from organiser Sean Evans, who umpired the three matches with Rhodri Jones, and the Neyland scorer was Kacey Arran, who did a brilliant job.
 
Also worthy of a mention was team manager Martin Jones, who not only kept the scores going on Play-Cricket but took the photographs, organised the mini-bus and drove it both ways, sorted out the breakfasts and generally looked after the squad – so well done Martin!