barnards green won the worcestershire cricket board gray’s county cup today when they defeated stourbridge by 19 runs in the t20 final at New Road.
an unbeaten 87 by ryan tongue – brother of county paceman josh tongue – steered barnards green to an impressive 167-1.
then three wickets for taylor pugh helped restrict stourbridge to 148-7 despite a half century from dominic o’reilly.
barnards green were put into bat and openers phil harris (37) and tongue put on 87 before the latter was bowled by mikesh jivan-patel.
tongue went onto strike three sixes and seven fours in his 63 ball knock and joe crichard (31 not out off 27 balls) helped him add an unbroken 74.
jivan-patel finished with 1-34 and jujhar johal bowled four tidy overs for 26 runs.
stourbridge reached 84-2 in reply with o’reilly adding 48 for the third wicket with marvarick perry (39).
but o’reilly, having made 52 off 48 balls with one six and six fours, fell to pugh who ended with fine figures of 4-0-30-3.
tongue followed up his fine knock by returning 4-0-21-1 and there was good support from phil harris (4-0-27-1), josh blunt (4-0-24-0) and andy ford (3-0-27-1).
the gray’s county plate final was won by old vigornians who edged out bretforton by five runs.
chris drew’s unbeaten 52 enabled old vigornians to total 140-7 after they chose to bat.
daniel lamb (4-0-18-2) steven edghill (4-0-25-2) and jamie clarke (4-0-31-2) were the most successful bretforton bowlers.
jamie clarke struck 39 for bretforton in reply before he was run out.
another three run outs during the last six deliveries – including two in the final over from angus guthrie – enabled old vigornians to edge home as their opponents were dismissed for 135 with two balls remaining.
guthrie (3.4-0-18-1) charles lamb (4-0-28-2), alex parker (4-0-15-1), jamie bader (2-0-14-2) and amelia kite (4-0-37-1) shared the wickets for vigornians.
