Lordswood Cricket Club are Kent Cricket League Champions for the very first time.
The Medway side led the table by a handful of points going into the final round of matches ahead of Tunbridge Wells who had gone second and become the only side capable of stopping Lordswood with a penultimate week win over Bexley.
Callum Macleod’s side knew that victory at Holmesdale would seal the title whilst the home side had to win to have any chance of staying in the Premier Division next summer.
The home side were asked to bat on what appeared to be a damp wicket and were soon in trouble as Jack Laraman and Thando Ntini reduced Holmesdale to 4-3. Ollie Chaplin and Carlos Maynard seemed to be steadling the home ship before they slipped from three more wickets for just seven runs this time to Ntini and the skipper himself.
When Maynard became Macleod’s third victim (the skipper finishing with 3-14 off six overs), the tail wilted under another burst from Laraman and when Callum Gallagher was caught by Macleod for a second ball duck, the home side were all out for just 78 and Laraman had returned figures of 5-17 from twenty-three ball.
“Just” seventy-nine to win and surely Lordswood had one thumb and eight fingers on the trophy! However, when bowling hero Laraman went first ball to Gallagher, the visitors had succumbed to 27-5 with Gallagher taking all five (he was to finish with 5-21 from eight overs) suddenly 79 seemed a long way off.
But Macleod and Bradley Goldsack were to share a glorious and arguably the most important fifty-nine run partnership in Lordswood history as they reached their target with fully thirty overs to spare.
Congratulations to Macleod and his side who win the title by fifteen points from Bexley who finished second after beating Sandwich by a solitary run. It was Lordswoods twelfth win out of eighteen games this summer and after being runners up three times in the last eleven season.
Sadly, though the defeat condemned Holmesdale to an immediate return to the Championship.
Images courtesy of Allen Hollands