ECB Kwik Cricket competition comes to a conclusion with county finals completed

The final two days of June saw the culmination of the two premier schools competitions in the county.  Like a European football competition, the qualifying rounds started as early as the 9^th May, almost two months before the finals days. 

These 19 qualifying competitions created the field for the biggest collection of cricketing school teams of the year.  Held at the “home of Wiltshire Kwik Cricket” Trowbridge Cricket Club, 260 children, as well as numerous teachers and parents came together to find out who was the top team for 2018.  In both competitions, the winning schools qualify for the regional rounds of the competitions taking place at Bristol Grammar School later in July.     

For the first time in memory, the entire qualifying and finals day programme took place without any disruption from the weather.  However the scorching heat of the two finals days meant that the fixtures and formats did have to be “tweaked” to save the players from the heat of the day.

Mixed Kwik Cricket Finals Day

Thursday saw the winners of the Mixed competition resolved.  With schools representing Swindon, Salisbury, Kennet, West Wilts and North Wilts areas, competition was fierce throughout.  The 16 schools were grouped into four pools with only the pool winners progressing to the semi final stage.

Pool A was dominated by Great Bedwyn School, who won all of their group matches without any issues. Pool B was a closer event with both Kings Lodge and The Mead Schools finishing with two wins each.  The Mead finished as group winners however with 67 more runs scored over the day compared with their Chippenham based rivals.

Pool C saw Sherston School end up undefeated, despite being under pressure in all their group matches.  They won all three of their games, however they only averaged 14 runs more than their rival schools across the three games.

Pool D proved to be emphatically simple for Broadchalke School. Broadchalke were to score sixty more runs overall than their next closest rivals in the group.

So we were left with an accidentally equitable spread of our semi finalists.  Sherston from the North, Broadchalke from the South, The Mead in the West and Great Bedwyn from the East.

South defeated West, with Broadchalke School continuing to dominate the competition beating The Mead.  In the other semi-final, Great Bedwyn out hit their opponents Sherston, with both sides hitting regular boundaries.

In the final, experience of the big match atmosphere proved to be key between the two sides.  Despite losing early wickets, previous winners Broadchalke School were too strong for the Kennet side and captured the trophy and the title of Wiltshire champions.

Girls Only Kwik Cricket Finals Day

The Girls County finals hotly contested and generally hot as the June heatwave continued unabated.  The ten school sides competed in two groups of five, with the top two teams in each group making it through to the semi final stage.

In Pool A, Peatmoor School and Marlborough St Mary’s both qualified for the Semi Finals with their last round wins against Box and Bitham Brook Schools respectively.

In Pool B, it was incredibly tight with three teams ending up level on points after the five rounds of matches.  The tie breaker again was the number of runs scored across the day, meaning that Ramsbury School finished at Pool A winners, with Five Lanes making it through as runners up. 

The Semi Finals were equally strong games with both of the group runners up proving to be too strong for the group winners.  Five Lanes were too strong for Peatmoor, Marlborough St Mary’s made it through to the final by beating Ramsbury School.  Strangely the only two games that Ramsbury School lost were against similarly named opposition.  Marlborough St Mary’s winning their semi-final, while St Mary’s Swindon beat them in the group phase.

The final itself was a close as any of the other matches seen during the day.  With the sun beating down, the pressure was on both teams.  However with both schools making their Girls Finals Day debuts, Five Lanes ended the day being the cooler of the two teams, eventually running out winners over the Marlborough side.

Both the Mixed and Girls Only County winners will now proceed to the Regional Finals taking place on Thursday 12^th July at Bristol Grammar School.