Brentham 1s celebrate improbable final-day promotion
How many sides are beaten by nine-wickets at 3.40pm and at 6.10pm are celebrating promotion after a team that was 49-6 chased 171? Well fortunately for us, our 1s are one of them!
An incredible week 18 of cricket at Meadvale Road, and more importantly at West Harrow, saw Tomek Tsang lead our first XI back to Division One for the first time since 2021.
The Trees started the day at home to ninth-placed Southgate with our fate firmly in our own hands, and ended it glued to phones furiously refreshing Play-Cricket for help from elsewhere.
On the pitch, Tomek's side never got going against a Southgate outfit who also needed the 10 points to have any chance of staying up.
Winning the toss and batting first, 15-3 became 41-5 and eventually 87-all out as only Pruthvi Kand (32) and Louie Millman (17) provided any real resistance.
The away side were equally clinical with the bat as they reached their target one-down inside 17 overs.
With news coming through that third-placed Ealing Trailfinders were well on top against West Harrow, it looked like months of hard work and hard cricket would come to nothing.
Slowly though, the cursory glances at the scorecard from Headstone Lane became more frequent as West Harrow's seventh-wicket partnership grew. From 49-6, it was suddenly 107-6 and suddenly there was belief.
Just as quickly though the mood was dampened with two quick Trailfinders wickets leaving the hosts 114-8 and then 139-9, still 32 short of their target. But that too started to be whittled away.
In an age of social media, live-streaming, and information being instantly available around the world, there was a certain romance of 30 1s players and supporters gathered round a tiny screen waiting for the change of a single digit on a scorecard from a game being played less than 6 miles away. . 4.2... .1.4.1 1112.4(nb)1 111.11
And then it was 5 to win.
A 42nd over maiden only ratcheted up the tension. After a no-ball and single got it down to one hit, time seemed to stand still waiting for the final update which would make or break the season.
Four. Promotion. Ealing next year.
A summer where everything was put into achieving that one aim of promotion suddenly had the ending it deserved. And the celebrations that followed at the club, and elsewhere much later into the night, spoke to that sense of achievement.
For Tomek, who will sadly for us be moving to Hong Kong this winter, it was the end of a four-year project, which has taken us from the lower reaches of Division Three back to Division One.
However, for the rest of the team, it is a chance to test ourselves at a higher level and show the MCCL what we are about.
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