Norton in Hales cricketers suffered heartbreak in their bid to reach the finals of a national indoor competition at Lord’s next week.
The village team missed out on a chance of playing at the home of cricket after their match against Worcestershire champions Worcester Nomads was decided by a tiebreaker of wickets lost.
Norton in Hales, last year’s North Shropshire Indoor Cricket League champions, was one of four teams to reach the regional finals played at the Warwickshire Indoor Cricket Centre in Birmingham last Sunday.
In their semifinal against the Nomads, Norton in Hales was set a target of 131 off 12 overs after their opponents’ innings of 130-2 and the run chase began badly when opener Chris Rowley was run out for three in the second over.
But steady batting by Tom Oakes, Andy Kevyn and Martin Rowley left the villagers needing only one run off the final two balls.
However, back-to-back run outs of Kevyn and Rowley left the scores tied, with the Nomads progressing after losing fewer wickets.
Martin said: “We were in a position to win but couldn’t get the winning run off the final two balls.
“They got 130 which was a bigger score than we’re used to, but we knew we could get the runs. We built the innings steadily and were ahead of the run rate right up to the last over, having played pretty well.
“But we knew that they’d lost fewer wickets and needed a run to win off the last ball which put pressure on us.
“We were all fairly philosophical immediately afterwards because it had been a good game and they were a good side.
“But later on, everyone was pretty down after seeing the other teams and realising we had nothing to be afraid of.”
The heartbreak was made worse after an error was discovered which showed that the village side had actually scored two runs more than their eventual total of 130-5.
Martin said: “We didn’t learn about the scoring mistake until we were showered and the final was already in play, so it was too late to do anything about it.
“You sometimes get these discrepancies but the final result was down to us.
“It’s been a good experience and really enjoyable - even the game we couldn’t win.”
By Winston Brown