A brutal last over assault from Adam Brand saw London Maccabi Vale crowned champions of the Harrow Indoor six-a-side cricket league Division Three after they pipped title rivals West Harrow to the post in a thrilling finale.
LMV entered their final 'must win game' against the other unbeated side in the division.
Vale won the toss and decided to field first. The game started off in typical style with Neil Lederman bowling a wide with the first ball of the match, but after that the bowlers on the whole didn't give much away and despite a few balls of buffet bowling and some rather big hitting on West Harrow's behalf, LMV restricted them to 121 of the 10 overs, which at one point looked like it would be closer to 150.
This was partially down to Brand (1-11) off his two overs including an instinctive caught and bowled and two typical over exuberant run-outs.
Knowing that 101 would be enough to win the league on run rate, LMV did their best to get nowhere near the target as every batter bar Brand came and went in quick succession. Richard Black was caught for a first-over duck, and after a bit of resistance from Paul Buxton, he dollied a catch to point. Haffner did his best to pick the fielder out expertly and Neil was run out without facing a ball.
By this point, Brando decided as has apparantly become custom in these matches to go it alone and 61 not out including 22 of the final over was enough to win the game off the last ball. He was well supported by Jonathan Fishel though who lasted several overs and hit the wall frequently to end 13 not out.
So a good finish to the indoor season and hopefully we can take this outside and do well in the league this season.
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