The first weeks of August saw the conclusion of the disability cricket season for our S9 and D40 sides. Heading into the final games, there was plenty on the line for the D40 hardball team: a regional title and a chance to make the national semi-final.
If you would like to find out more about the opportunities to play disability cricket, then visit the disability section of our website. We have softball, hardball, visually impaired, and non-competitive inclusive forms of the game.
Here is how our sides fared in their games this month, as written by the players involved.
D40 v Wales
Our final league game of the season saw us take on Wales. A win here would see us make the semi-finals and win the league!
Wales won the toss and chose to field, which meant Naomi Forecast and Henry Clelland strapped on their pads to open the batting. The Wales bowlers started well, making runs difficult to come by.
When Naomi (8) was dismissed, Arlo Pockett came to the crease and wasted no time in increasing the scoring rate, hitting a HUGE six off just his second ball before following it up with a four. He followed it up in the next over by hitting back-to-back fours before eventually being dismissed for an entertaining 23 off 15 balls.
Next to the crease was Matt Bermingham, joining Henry in the middle. The Wales bowlers reapplied the pressure after Arlo’s wicket and made run-scoring difficult for our batters. After showing great resistance, Henry eventually fell for 18, bringing Riley Pearce to the crease looking to steady the ship alongside Matt.
The Gloucestershire batters worked hard, moving the score to 104 before Matt was caught. Bringing our captain, Paul Ballinger, to the wicket, joining his own club teammate Riley at the crease. The pair put on an impressive 72-run partnership, which included a huge straight six and a brilliant 50 for Riley!
Paul was eventually given out LBW for 27, bringing Chris Bermingham to the crease, who clearly wanted to join the competition for the biggest six of the day! He wasted absolutely no time, whacking a six off his very first ball!
However, Riley was dismissed the following ball, leaving us 182-6 after 33.1 overs. The final few wickets fell quickly, but we pushed our score above 200, finishing our innings all out for 208. A competitive total, but we knew we would still have to bowl well.
Opening the bowling for us were Hayden Pitts and, fresh off the back of his superb five-for at Taunton, Hamish Haseler. It didn’t take long for us to strike, with Hayden bowling their opener in just his second over to leave Wales 10-1.
Hayden and Hamish bowled fantastically in their opening spells and were unfortunate not to pick up any more wickets. Our change bowlers continued the hard work and were eventually rewarded with the second wicket in the 17th over thanks to a fantastic caught and bowled from Oliver Sutton, leaving Wales 68-2.
This put us in a position we were relatively happy with, but we knew we would still have to bowl with discipline to get the win we wanted. Our third wicket came in the 28th over, courtesy of a great ball from Hamish, with Wales on 121. However, a Wales Quest player had other ideas. Despite the best efforts of our bowlers, Wales managed to chase down our total with 3.4 overs to spare.
It was a great game and a fantastic effort from our side against what was effectively Wales’ Quest team. It was a season to be proud of, highlighted by plenty of superb individual performances. The coaches have certainly been impressed by the effort and sporting spirit shown by our players throughout the season.
A huge thank you must also go to Steve Forecast for scoring our games this season — it is really appreciated! As the season comes to a close, we now look forward to winter training and preparing to come back even better next season!
Gloucestershire s9 Performance team vs Cornwall Disabled CC
It was clear blue skies in Cornwall at St Erme Cricket Club, where our hosts won the toss and elected to bat first.
Our fielding was fantastic for the first few overs as we kept Cornwall from scoring easy runs. This effort rewarded us with our first two wickets, both run-outs, from Charlie and Dave. It was electric fielding, and our hard work paid dividends.
Unfortunately, it was after this that Cornwall gained the initiative. Their batters started to increase the scoring rate and found the boundary more regularly as we found wickets hard to come by. It wasn’t until the 29th over that the Bermingham brothers combined to claim our next wicket. James bowled for his brother to take a great catch. Despite the excellent start, Cornwall managed to score 188 from their 30 overs.
Our innings with the bat didn’t get off to the best start as Sam and Charlie fell early. Luckily, Dave and Elie steadied the ship and started to score some runs as we made progress towards our victory target. Dave held his own brilliantly, scoring 32, while Elie provided excellent support with her 14.
When Elie was bowled, Zac came to the wicket and knew that we needed to up the scoring rate if we wanted to chase down this total. His quickfire 26 not out did some damage, but at the end of our 30 overs we fell short. We didn’t get bowled out, but we could only muster 130 runs, meaning we fell to defeat.
Overall, it was a good game to finish a great season. It was played in fantastic spirit, and congratulations to Cornwall for taking the win.
