In the first year of Beechbrook Capital’s sponsorship, a good crowd of supporters and neutrals and a heavenly Arundel day saw a pulsating Cricketer Cup Final, between Old Tonbridgians and Old Bedfordians, who emerged the winners by two wickets with six balls to spare. Those brief facts hide the greater reality of what was the highest-scoring Cricketer Cup final in its 55 year history. Twice in finals there have been scores of over 300 by the side batting first (Old Cliftonians in 1993 at Vincent’s Square and Old Malvernians at Arundel in 2023), but the aggregate of 579 runs is larger than in any previous final. Bowlers had a tough time of it all day, and only one maiden over was recorded in the whole match. Both sides had come all the way from the bye round of the competition, the first time this had happened since a bye round was introduced in 2017 to accommodate growing numbers of alumni clubs wanting to participate in the Cricketer Cup. Bedford in their six games had also used an unusually large pool of over thirty players.

On winning the toss, Bedford) decided to bowl, hardly a surprise even on a hot day as they had successfully chased in every previous round, twice winning by 10 wickets, and it became obvious through the day that their batting was stronger than their bowling. Tonbridge made a strong start with 63 for the first wicket in 11 overs before Ed Hyde fell for 20. Freddie Geffen reached his 50 before being run out, and then Will Nolan with 36 put on 72 with Harry Bevan-Thomas, who played the best Tonbridge innings of 71 off 83 balls. He had good assistance from Ant Bissett who came in at number six and struck 60 off 40 balls, including four sixes, so that Tonbridge finished with 288-6 off their 50 overs. The Bedford bowling was mainly spin and at best only steady, Shiv Patel the only bowler to concede less than five runs an over, and the fielding was moderate with two or three catches going down.

Opinion among the cognoscenti was that this total was a bit better than par on a flat wicket and fast outfield with boundaries drawn in more tightly than usual. As it happened, Bedford began like an express train and had reached 80 by the time the first wicket fell in the eighth over. Ed Wharton took a liking to the seam of Toby Pettman with a succession of boundaries before he was smartly caught by Ollie Morgan for 53 off 35 balls. The other opener Ewan Cox played in a similarly muscular way for his 63 off 62 balls, and now had a productive partnership with Vedant Somal of 77 in 13 overs. Somal was a joy to watch, his innings of 49 full of silky flicks through and over mid-wicket. At 192-2, with 23 overs left to get 97, Bedford should have had the game sewn up, but their batsmen now became careless. Cox was out to a brilliant leg-side stumping by Ed Hyde off Will Nolan, the off-spinners Sam Hadfield and Tom Coldman bowled tight spells, and Hadfield took an excellent running catch in the deep to dismiss Shiv Patel. The experienced former Northants captain Alex Wakely slapped one tamely to mid-off, and other former Northants professionals in wicket-keeper Harry Gouldstone and captain Charlie Thurston also departed cheaply, so that Bedford had lost six wickets for only 54 runs in 13 overs. At 246-8, they still needed 43 to win in 10 overs, and the tension in the pavilion area was palpably rising, but they had a proper batsman left in Ben Slawinski and a number ten in Alex Rennie who was more than capable of holding up an end. The score gradually kept up against tight bowling and tigerish fielding, until Slawinski was able to relieve the tension with a couple of boundaries in the 49th over to take his team over the line and register his own fifty.

The two sides had given their all, and Tonbridge did well to claw themselves back into the game which looked easily lost halfway through the Bedford innings. That such a high aggregate could be recorded with six individual fifties but no score higher than 71 was perhaps in line with how cricket has developed from the Test arena down through the Hundred. The cup and individual prizes were presented by Paul Shea, an Old Tonbridgian who is the founder and managing partner of Beechbrook Capital, and by former Sussex captain Johnny Barclay, now President of the Cricketer Cup. Both men could reflect on a competition in great health, and the passion both sides brought to the game and the result itself were testimony to how much they cared about the competition.