Brilliant Willows smashes Hucknall into T20 cup semi-finals

Willows cracked 146 not out of just 59 balls, with seven fours and 13 sixes, as Hucknall beat Attenborough by five wickets in a match that went to the wire.

Batting first, the visitors looked to have posted a decent total of 225-7 in their 20 overs with Lucas Stentifold (82no), Adi Badge (49) and Parakrama Thennakoon (44) all scoring well.

Connor Ramm (3-45) and Saif Ali (2-49) led the bowling for Hucknall, who lost Ryan Buckley to the first ball of their reply.

But that merely brought together Willows and Oliver Horlock (53), who put on 111 for the second wicket before Willows took care of the rest of the run chase almost single-handedly as Hucknall got home with a ball to spare at 227-5.

Cup success made up for league disappointment for Hucknall the previous day as they suffered an 89-run defeat at second-placed Cavaliers & Carrington.

Batting first, the defending champions piled up 345-5 in their 50 overs with Savin Perera hitting a superb unbeaten 120, with 11 fours and three sixes, and sharing in a second-wicket stand of 148 with Akhil Patel (94) before Dominic Brown (69no) smashed nine sixes in a late onslaught.

Hucknall’s reply was held together by skipper Sam Johnson (96), backed up by Oliver Horlock (29) and Jacob Taylor (26).

But the target was ultimately too much as Raheen Ahmed and Faizan Saleem both took three wickets each for Cavaliers to bowl out Hucknall for 256 in 46.3 overs.

At the other end of the table, Papplewick & Linby bounced back from two successive defeats by crushing rock-bottom Caythorpe by 149 runs.

Ben Shaw starred for Papplewick with the bat – making exactly 100 off 121 balls with 11 fours, as he and Joe Walker (80) put on 168 for the third wicket, before late runs from Ben Bhabra (29no) took Papplewick to 265-7 in their 50 overs.

Caythorpe’s reply was then blown away by Dillon Singh (5-44) and Byron Hatton-Lowe (4-20), who shared nine wickets between them as Caythorpe were fired out for 116 in 33.2 overs.