Stearman stars as Waterlooville are beaten in Southern Premier League T20 Plate final by red-hot favourites South Wilts

Jack Stearman led the way with an undefeated 85 as red hot favourites South Wilts claimed a 41-run victory over two tiers lower Ville in a relatively one-sided Ages Bowl final.

Stearman struck three sixes and eight boundaries, his innings laying the platform for South Wilts to total 158-3 before Ville were restricted to 118-9 (Tom Lewis 4-26).

It took Stearman’s competitive South Wilts’ run tally for the season to 1,152, 840 of which came in Premier League matches. He made five hundreds and eight other scores of fifty or more.

The bespectacled left-hander shared early partnerships with Tom Morton and Jack Mynott before adding 56 with Arthur Godsal (32 not out) in the last five overs as South Wilts effectively batted Ville out of the game.

South Wilts were in the Plate competition after falling to a first round defeat by the Hampshire Academy n June. Ville were Plate holders, having beaten Basingstoke & North Hants in the 2021 final.

When Ville replied, off-spinner Lewis conceded 11 runs off his opening over before bouncing back to take four of the last six wickets to fall.

Kiwi Josh McGregor (23) and Josh McCoy (28) moved the score to 88-3 before Ville crumbled to 118-9, six wickets falling for 20 runs.

Ville manager Andy Reynolds accepted that his side were up against one of the juggernauts of Southern Premier League cricket, but still ‘didn’t play our best cricket.’

Tim Jackson took two outstanding catches in the deep, but Reynolds admitted: ‘We made some key mistakes in the field which proved very costly.

‘We needed to be far braver with the bat and needed to play more fearless cricket to give ourselves the chance to win.

‘South Wilts bowled well and adjusted to the pitch better than we did. We were beaten by a better team but hopefully we will learn from the experience and take that into next season’s campaign.’