Reed and Woodhouse Grange through to Lord's final

The winners of the 2012 Yorkshire Tea Village Cup will come from Hertfordshire or North Yorkshire, after Reed CC and Woodhouse Grange CC won their semi-finals on Sunday to make the Lord's final on September 9.

For Reed, this is new territory. The furthest they have been in this competition was the quarter-finals in 1988. That was the first year the Village Cup was won by Goatacre, the Wiltshire giants who were hosting Sunday's semi-final.

Things did not start well for Reed, with two wickets falling in the first over of the match. But Stuart Smith, Reed's big-hitter in the middle order, thrashed a brilliant hundred off 55 balls to take his team to 225.

And Reed were all fired up when they came out to field, dismantling the opposition batting order with pace and hostility. Despite the best efforts of Bradley Dawson, who was beeing cheered on by brother and Hampshire allrounder Liam, Goatacre were bowled out for 163.

Things were even more one-sided up at Woodhouse Grange, where Cropston CC, from Leicestershire, were bundled out for 103. The Woodhouse Grange openers, Nick Hadfield and Mike Hattee, put on 87 for the first wicket as their team romped to victory by eight wickets.

This will be Woodhouse Grange's fifth visit to Lord's for a Village Cup final. They won the competition in 1995 and in 2007 and were runners-up in 1999 and in 2008.

Date: 14/08/2012 11:57:18 by Yorkshire Tea
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