The Village Cup returned to The Bank Bowl after last weeks regional final victory over Exhall & Wixford.
This time we faced first time entrants Temple Grafton, who made it through to the National rounds as Warwickshire Champions without a challenge.
Much of the talk pre-match circled around a certain player in the opposition ranks, but Bank knew they would have to do a professional job themselves if they were to progress to the last 16.
The other thing that Bank has to battle as well as their opponents was the weather. The forecast for Sunday had been atrocious all week but fortunately we were forecast enough dry time to try to get an adapted match in.
The game was reduced to 30 overs a side on agreement at the toss.
Bank list the toss and were invited to bat, with the Village Cup reduced overs format favouring side batting second. Bank knew fast scoring would be essential if they were to have any chance of progressing. Tom Pedley and Rob West opened as positively as ever and crashed boundaries frequently.
Pedley was particularly aggressive and raced to his second half century of the weekend in no time. The scoring rate was sky high, but sadly, the dark skies were closing in on the ground. We were probably fortunate with the downpour that we did have, as we had reports of much heavier and prolonged downpours nearby. However, the volume of rain we had meant nearly an hour of play was lost from the game.
Full credit must go to Temple Grafton, who were equally as keen to get the game on as the home side. Play eventually resumed with 17 overs lost from the game. This meant Bank would have to declare their innings in order to get time back in the game for the second innings.
The batsmen went back out and aimed to pile on as many runs as they could in a few overs. West reached his half century and Pedley went to three figures as the total reached 200. Gareth Barry, introduced to the attack at the car park end, claimed 3 quick wickets. He picked up Pedley, Tom Underhill and dirty bluenose Josh Baker. When Bank lost their 5th wicket, they declared their innings on 223 from 25 overs.
This gave Temple Grafton a tempting little total of 126 from 17 overs.
Joel Haslam and Dan Thomas set about defending the total and quickly made breakthroughs. Dan Thomas, back in metronomic form, had opener Killian trapped lbw for 0 in the second over.
Thomas then removed Ashfield and Cross for 0’s too. Skipper Ed Harris looked positive and did manage to crash a few boundaries in his 23 before he too fell to Dan Thomas. Thomas went on the claim 7 wickets in total for just 16 runs with Farrow, Barry and Bilbrough his final victims. A phenomenal spell of 6 overs.
With loud crashes of thunder and a few bright flashes of lightning in the air, speed was the name of the game for Bank as they had to rush to get the minimum 15 overs in to constitute a game.
Baker, Underhill and Harris all flew through overs to ensure the 15 overs were reached and one final wicket from Tom Harris meant that Temple Grafton finished on 67 for 8 from their 17 overs.
Bank progressed to round 5, just in time, as the heavens then opened. We will face Colwall in the last 16 at home this Sunday.
Thank you to Rebecca Boycott for the pics 📸
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