Somerset Cricket Club (Cleveland won toss): Cleveland beat Warwick by 65 runs

Cleveland County showcased their incredible team spirit to thrash Warwick and get their Athene T20 Premier Division return off to the best possible start.

The visitors won the toss and elected to bat on a wicket which had already seen an aggressive total of 189 recorded earlier in the day, and openers Dion Stovell and Allan Douglas Jr made a solid start, with the latter smashing a monstrous six and a delicate four off the first over from Malachi Jones.

With the fourth ball of the same over, Jones fooled Douglas with a slower ball that clipped the bails between middle and leg stumps.

Luke Horan later appealed vigorously with his Warwick team-mates for leg-before against Steven Bremar, but their shouts were in vain. He and Stovell attempted a cheeky single, and barely made it despite a valiant effort by Horan to run out the Cup Match MVP.

Bremar, after compiling a solid knock with a good blend of aggression and finesse, placed an attempted drive straight to long-off where Warwick captain Cory Burgess took the simplest of catches to stunt the visitors’ progress at 72 for two.

Stovell and Cleveland captain Mackih McGowan put on 31 runs for the third wicket before Shonari Boyles took his second wicket of the day, getting Stovell to pick out Jones with an angled drive in his second over. New batter Treadwell Gibbons scampered for a quick single with McGowan, who was judged to have obstructed the field. The next over, Gibbons was caught by Jones, this time off the bowling of Marcus Johnson.

Johnson took three further wickets on the day, including the crucial wicket of McGowan just as he was picking up the innings with good shot-making. The captain drove a cut shot to mid-wicket where Luke Horan took the catch after juggling the ball a few times. A decent cameo of ten not out by young Isaiah Greaves gave the visitors a challenging total of 137 for seven to defend.

Warwick, promoted as the T20 First Division winners, held the slight upper hand at the innings break. Horan hit a beautiful scoop shot over the head of wicketkeeper Bremar to the third-man boundary in the second over off McGowan. However, two balls later, he tried to hit a cover drive but got a thick top edge to a grateful Treadwell Gibbons.

Gibbons later came into the bowling attack as the first change, replacing Stovell, and the switch paid dividends immediately. He enticed Zeri Tomlinson to play into his field set on the final ball of his first over, and the former Cleveland player played straight to Kioshi Trott on the fine-leg boundary. Over the next three overs, Douglas and Gibbons took four wickets between them, the former taking three of those.

Greaves and Aciram Burgess stole the spotlight with the help of their experienced campaigners in the field. Even though they took one wicket each, their solid bowling action kept the Warwick batters in check.

Douglas cleaned up the final two batters, Robert Richardson and Trey Vance, to wrap up a convincing victory for Cleveland.

Cleveland coach Clevie Wade was disappointed with their batting display. “We were about 40 runs short of our planned total,” he said.

Wade was complimentary of his team’s hard work in the field. “I knew we could defend the total,” he added. “The team showed immense fight, and took most of our catches, and catches win matches.”