Edinburgh Castle Rockers 151 for 3 (Gous 90*, R Adair 23, Humphreys 1-29) beat Belfast Wolves 150 for 5 (Tector 84, Conway 29, Boult 2-21, Smuts 1-19) by seven wickets
Tector’s lone battle
After Castle Rockers asked Wolves to bat first, Tector and Paul Stirling managed just seven runs in the first two overs. Tector, though, showed some intent when he whipped Trent Boult for six over fine leg. While the Castle Rockers bowlers kept a lid on the scoring, Tector held one end up for Wolves. The shot of the day came when he gently pushed a length ball from Matt Watt, and perfect timing sent it trickling past mid-on for four.
Watt, Mitchell Santner and Tom Curran kept Wolves quiet – just 76 runs came off the first 11 overs despite the loss of only one wicket – with Tector on a patient 39 off 33 deliveries. But Wolves needed Tector to hang around. He raised fifty with back-to-back boundaries off Watt in the 13th over. Tector ended up scoring more than half of Wolves’ total, but he took his time due to the lack of support from the other end.
Boult’s inswing and perfect lengths
Boult got the new ball to swing into Tector and Stirling, and conceded just a single in the first over. He was hit for 11 runs in his second over, but got Stirling courtesy of a great catch from Jack Jarvis at cover point.
Boult was brought back for the 15th and 18th overs. He went yorker after yorker in the first over of his second spell, during which he dismissed Lorcan Tucker thanks to another brilliant catch – this time by JJ Smuts. That over went for only five runs, as did the 18th, in which Boult mixed slower balls and yorkers to finish with 4-0-21-2.
Adair vs Adair
Castle Rockers’ chase started with two brothers facing each other. Elder brother Ross Adair opened the batting, while the younger Mark Adair had the new ball. It all went Ross’ way to begin with – 4, wd, wd, 6, as Ross first guided one past the keeper, and then dumped a six over the sightscreen down the ground.
Wolves stuck with Mark, and he responded well. He gave just a single off the first four balls of the third over, before dismissing Ross on the final delivery. The eventual result? Eight balls, 12 runs, two wides, and the wicket. All even?
Castle Rockers slow down in chase
Ross and Gous all but killed the contest in the first eight overs. Castle Rockers only needed 79 to win off the remaining 72 balls, with nine wickets in hand. But Maxwell’s side kept themselves in the contest. The Wolves captain brought himself on – he bagged his career-best figures of 4 for 18 only a day back – and that started a quiet period for Castle Rockers.
Maxwell, Matthew Humphreys, Gavin Hoey and Fred Klaassen bowled the next four overs for just 15 runs, as Humphreys ended Smuts’ struggle on 15 off 23 balls. After 12 overs, Castle Rockers had gone 29 balls without a boundary, and Wolves sniffed a comeback with 64 runs required off 48 balls. But Gous didn’t let that happen.
Gous kills Wolves’ hopes
Before Gous turned it around in the second half of the chase, he had already set the game up for Castle Rockers. He got just two runs off his first four balls, but went 4, 4, 6 against Mark off the first four balls of the fifth over. Gous could do nothing wrong, as he read a slower ball from Klaassen to launch him for six to end the powerplay.
Even when Castle Rockers slowed down, it was Gous who ended the boundary drought. Two boundaries off Hoey in the 13th over brought Castle Rockers back as he got to fifty off 36 balls. Gous launched Maxwell for four more in the 15th over and effectively killed the contest and Wolves’ hopes by taking Jordan for 11 runs in the 16th over.
The chase finished with Gous going 6, 4 off Maxwell, as Jordan watched the ball sail over his head and then fumbled to allow four. Castle Rockers were champions, as Wolves were left to rue a lack of runs.
Himanshu Agrawal is a sub-editor at Cricinfo