The inaugural outdoor Tapeball T10 Asia Blaze competition landed at Stirling County cricket club on Sunday 22nd July 2018. A competition led by community discussions and a spin off from the highly successful Indoor Tapeball competition saw teams from as far as Forth Valley, Airdrie and Edinburgh compete in a one-day cricket extravaganza! Eight teams entered through Cricket Scotland’s Go Membership website with the tournament starting off in a round robin format with the winners in each group facing off in the final for the T10 Asia Blaze trophy.
Also promoted as a family fun day, there was a range of bouncy castles, activities for young and old with plenty of food on offer. The BBQ was a real hit and with families turning up in their hundreds to support, play cricket and enjoy a nice day in a beautiful setting.
100 players, 13 games, 8 teams, 2 pitches but only 1 winner!
In group A, Indoor tapeball winners “Govanhill CC” started well by winning their first two games and were matched by “Airdrie Panthers” who also won their first two games. So, the last group game was a straight playoff for a spot in the final. A very close match ensued and as you can imagine this match was a little tense, both teams struggled with their allocated times to complete their overs but “Govanhill CC” eventually ran out winners for a place in the final.
Group B was much closer and the possibility of any one of three teams going through to the final was possible up until the last match. New comers Forth Valley had fought out a very competitive match against Edinburgh CC and some hard hitting by their lower order saw them win and keep the pressure on others in the group. However, “Active Life CC” remained strong with both ball and bat and beat Edinburgh CC in their last group game to progress to the finals!
So, it was a Govanhill CC v’s Active Life Club final and we were not disappointed. Govanhill won the toss and fancied a bat and bat they did. Sixes and fours were a plenty and they amassed 181 runs in 10 overs, most batsman scoring freely and making the boundaries which were close to hard ball cricket dimensions. The pressure was on Active Life Club from the off and in the beginning, they were keeping up with the run rate until a wobble in the middle overs. Active life Club lost valuable wickets, but it was the dot balls in the middle overs that hurt them most. The run had spiralled out of control, but they fought valiantly but, in the end, asking rate of 25 plus runs was far too much. They did manage a respectable 165 but “Govanhill CC” were crowned T10 Asia Blaze winners!
Cricket Scotland’s Community Engagement Officer quoted, “I would like thank everybody that was involved today, we asked the community again for help and support with another event and they did help in numbers. Our purpose was to bring communities together using cricket as tool for engagement, today we have had men women and children from all different backgrounds playing cricket in some shape or form and it really was a beautiful sight.”
