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REPORT FROM THE TIMES

KIBWORTH, the Leicestershire club, crowned a superb four days with victory in the Cockspur Cup final, eclipsing their weekend double, when they won both the Everards League Premier Division and Leicester Mercury County Cup competitions. But they were made to sweat by their Derbyshire adversaries, and in particular Jake Needham, the 17-year-old ECB Academy prodigy, who made an assured fifty, then almost turned the game in Ockbrook & Borrowash’s favour with four of the five wickets they took.

Needham, batting at No 3, arrived at the wicket after Chris Dunn and Jon Owen, a former Derbyshire player, had put on 51 in 16 overs. He shared in another half-century partnership with the combative Dunn, but could only watch as a succession of partners came and went. He brought up his fifty with a sharp single but was run out for 51 as Ockbrook posted 194.

Kibworth’s reply got off to a swift start, John Hanger producing the shot of the day with a superb cut behind square to the longest boundary. He and Mike Sutliff, his captain, put on 50 in 72 balls but, on a day when spinners claimed all but one of the wickets, Needham and Ian Darlington slowed their progress. The match was going Kibworth’s way as Andy Smith and Russell Cobb put on 68, but Needham’s third and fourth wickets in consecutive balls put the matter back on the boil at 157 for five.Yet when Simon Renshaw survived the hat-trick ball, a corner seemed to have been turned. He confirmed the trophy’s destination emphatically, swatting a giant six over mid-on.

Ockbrook & Barrowash may look back and wonder about what might have been in their first tilt at this trophy, particularly when a succession of edges and slices, intentional and not, cost them a good dozen runs through an often vacant third man. For them there is always next year.