GCF World Trophy V | IC thread

by **Darmen** » Tue Apr 01, 2025 10:57 am

OOC: Number of wickets in the Darmeni innings ammended.

Darmen 138/3 (22.3)-137/8 (50) Impreo De Jap
Darmen won the toss and chose to bowl, Darmen won by 7 wickets
@ St Margaret's Oval, Florley Garden City, The Kytler Peninsulae (attendance 21,179)

First Innings
Name        Overs M Runs Wkts Econ
K Rosenfeld 10.0  4 17   2    1.70
G Bean      10.0  2 31   1    3.10
I Snelling  10.0  3 26   1    2.60
E English   10.0  4 23   2    2.30
B Bachmann  10.0  3 40   2    4.00

Second Innings
Name                   Runs Balls 4's 6's SR
MS Brice       lbw b ?  23  17     5  0   135.29
T Maxwell      c ? b ?   9  11     2  0    81.82
W van der Zee  not out  51  40     8  1   127.50
K O'Callaghan  c ? b ?  24  36     4  0    66.67
E English      not out  26  31     3  1    83.87
Extras                   5
Total                  138        22  2
Did not bat: R Breckinridge, B Bachmann*, J Beckett†, G Bean, K Rosenfeld, I Snelling

Player of the Match: Winston van der Zee (DAR)

Darmen Strolls Into Quarterfinals

FLORLEY GARDEN CITY, THE KYTLER PENINSULAE - After a loss to Indusse in the qualifying playoff, Darmeni fans might have been expected to be slightly nervous at having to face a possible elimination to an unranked debutants Impreo De Jap side which had just eliminated hosts The Kytler Peninsulae from the tournament.

But they needn't have been worried, as Darmen's bowlers put on a masterclass display in economical bowling, even if wickets were not as forthcoming as some might have wanted. Holding Impreo De Jap to 137 runs from the full allotment of 50 overs, Kieran Rosenfeld and the rest of the Darmeni bowling attack set things up nicely for Darmen's batters to chase things down in the second innings.

With only a trio of hiccoughs along the way, Darmen's batters chased down the winning runs at a leisurely stroll, with Winston van der Zee's unbeaten half-century earning him player of the match honors.

Darmen will now face another unranked debutant nation, Vaishnavaria, for a shot at the semifinals. Bud Bachmann's side will be hoping they can repeat their easy victory to advance to the final four of the World Trophy for the first time ever.

by **Vielfaltig** » Tue Apr 01, 2025 12:44 pm

for transparency, I scorinated without grading Darmen's RP since it was posted just while I was scoring. Since they won their game, I have graded their RP and added it to their MD bonus for this cutoff.

Kytlerian Quarterfinals Results

Indusse 246/9 (50 overs)
Sylestone 247/5 (38 overs)
Sylestone won by 5 wickets (72 balls remaining)

Vaishnavaria 168 (36.1 overs)
Darmen 170/6 (32.5 overs)
Darmen won by 4 wickets (103 balls remaining)

Kytlerian Semifinal Fixture
Sylestone vs Darmen @ National Oval, Roddens

by **The Plough Islands** » Thu Apr 03, 2025 8:01 am

on the 2nd April 2025, the Plough Islands Gazette wrote:
WORLD TROPHY: KO-OREN AND THE PLOUGH ISLANDS, A CLOSELY FOUGHT HISTORY
by Ian Goswell, Chief Cricket Correspondent for Plough Radio, in Montebello

As Shauna Weaver's Plough Islands side return to the Vielfaltigian capital to prepare for the semi final of the Global Cricket Federation World Trophy tomorrow - with Terry Gibbs and Naomi Salisbury having combined with three wickets apiece to end Natkr's unlikely run of luck - we find a very familiar team waiting for us. Ko-oren and the Plough Islands have played possibly more matches in multiversal cricket than any other pair of teams over the last decade, despite our small country having only slightly over 0.5% of the population of our distant southern neighbours; or, perhaps, because of the disparity, as a kind of narrative gravity pulls us into each other's orbit over and over again.
Cricket, the sport that has brought our countries together so often, is one of the few things we objectively have in common; the sport aside, our countries share little more than a distant maritime heritage, a very broad outlook on multiversal politics, and something of a common language; despite the Gehrennisation of Ko-orenite affairs in recent years, English was brought to their islands much as it was brought to ours, and it remains a lingua franca of Anaian relations, broadcasting, and commerce. Beyond these, the differences between our Marxist-Leninist republic and their complex technocracy range from trifling to vast. Life is bigger, faster, and more complex on the Halcyon Archipelago in many ways, and this filters through to the cricket field; the Ko-orenites have been led by five different captains at the World Trophy to the islanders' two, and many more players have appeared in green than have worn colour clash enforced red or purple. Even our animal personae inhabit different worlds, dragonflies and foxes sitting comfortably near the apex of their respective food webs yet neither peer, predator, or prey to each other.
Yet whenever we have played, and this has been often over the last eight years, the result has been some of the friendliest yet most competitive cricket played anywhere in the multiverse. From our first tour of the country in 2018 - a Test series remembered by this writer as the 'long hot summer' where Herschel Marsden's team, as it was, invariably dragged matches out to the fifth afternoon or beyond in blazing Surbourneshire sunshine - our games have been competitive and spirited without any underlying anger or needle, a mix of passion and genuine encouragement by and of both sides. For all our differences, Ko-orenites and Plough Islanders are similarly empathetic, hard working, sincere people unbothered by the stresses placed on them by society at large, and players and supporters alike have always got on well, as have the officials of the Ko-orenite Cricket Board and the Plough Islands Cricket Association.
In anticipation, therefore, of our eighth meeting at the World Trophy tomorrow, we take a backwards glance at the previous seven matches between Ko-oren and the Plough Islands in the competition. This reveals a surprising history of fine margins, at times agonisingly so with matches remaining in the balance right down to the final over, and of paths crossing and recrossing again as the same tale is told anew with different protagonists. Here then is our journey's start;

20 May 2020 ☭ Park Central Oval, Orean ☭ World Trophy I, Liventia, Group A
Result ☭ Plough Islands win by 10 runs

Although this match came early on in the inaugural One Day International tournament run by the Global Cricket Federation, it was not the first time that our countries had met outside of Test whites; Ko-oren had had the better of a high scoring game at the ill-fated World 20-over Championships in 2018, while the Foxes avenged their defeat by winning the Polaris Trophy fifty over series the following year, though the ladder had lacked GCF sanction. Reading the scorecard from five years on is to be taken back to a very different world - Kevin Laing and Herschel Marsden were the captains, with only opener Reginald Twaddle, who top scored for his team with 95 as a sprightly twenty-three year old, still active for the Ko-orenites, and Shauna Weaver one of five Foxes to be named in the squad five years later.
It was the veteran players that carried the day for the men and women in red and amber, though, with Graeme Holt batting deftly through 44 overs to score the first century for a Plough Islander in limited overs cricket, while all-rounder Andrew Fairfield and wicketkeeper Tim Bleasdale entertained the Park Central Oval with some quick late runs that would prove crucial. The Ko-orenite reply started strongly, with Marsden's side plundering Andrew Baxter and Colin McCarthy for runs on a regular basis, but some careful containment fielding by Laing and some timely wickets meant that they never truly seemed on top of the run rate, particularly after Fairfield and McCarthy took some critical wickets to remove settled partnerships. The explosive right-hander Patrick Willis made sure Ko-oren were in contention right down to the final over, but death bowling from Naomi Salisbury in the face of increasingly furious swiping held the target just out of the reach of the Dragonflies.
It was the latest in an increasingly telegenic series of matches for the still new competition - the Foxes having come through two additional tie break overs to win their opening game against Damukuni - and though a complex format that favoured Test teams appeared set to produce a quick rematch, it was not to be. The draw sent our teams to separate groups in the second phase of the tournament, and though the Plough Islands and Ko-oren both won their own half of the draw - finishing top of groups G and H respectively - they both faltered in the knock-out stage, the Foxes losing their semi-final to Krytenia and Marsden's team falling one round earlier to eventual winners New Lunenburg.

21 February 2021 ☭ Mire of Goatliness, Rajjenkali ☭ World Trophy II, Gruenberg, Super Eight
Result ☭ Ko-oren win by 17 runs

Of all the decisions made by the Global Cricket Federation, awarding the second World Trophy to Gruenberg - a country whose name it was illegal to abbreviate, where the state-endorsed cult beliefs had taken over society to a cartoonishly absurd degree, and the climate ranged from chokingly, gaspingly humid to merely inhospitably hot - is probably one of the least explicable. While the resulting tournament was perfectly organised and executed, the Plough Islands were forced to spend almost all of the competition travelling under Constabulary guard, with players, press, and protectors all sharing the same living space for the tour. Rajjenkali, with the unbelievable, unquestioning, and unsettling superstition that came with a pilgrimage site, was actually one of the more normal grounds in a tour that also encompassed raw chemical waste on the outfield at Arradan and mid-over sandstorms in Sal-Sivani.
Under floodlights by the ancient city walls, Lachlan Harvey's Dragonflies were restricted to a relatively pedestrian 263, but on the deteriorating pitch in a sticky, wet heat, the Plough Islands were psychologically vulnerable, and Finley Meredith - the Ko-orenite wicketkeeper pressed into service due to his team's own injury problems - opened the bowling with his part time leg spin and was rewarded almost instantly, with the Foxes collapsing to 12-3 inside three overs. Meredith took a career best 4-55, picking off talisman Laing for just 17 to add to his early haul, and though Shauna Weaver dug in and virtually carried her team for the rest of the innings, the match was effectively over before it began, and her Stakhanovite, undefeated 122, and all the sweat that was poured into it, was just not enough as the Plough Islands ran out of time and overs to complete the chase.
The result effectively eliminated the Foxes, an outcome that, if the truth be told, none of the travelling contingent was entirely unhappy with; having been subjected to a 131 run thrashing by the hosts earlier in the Super Eights, few Plough Islanders were relishing the prospect of being forced to face Gruenberg and again endure and the fanatical patriotism of the locals in the knockouts. Neither team would have to do so; despite their victory, the Dragonflies were skittled out for 235 against Krytenia to miss out on the semi finals by 0.093 of net run rate, and it was the Sarian - despite losing to both teams in the Super Eights - who qualified at their expense, and went on to defeat the Kryties in the final for their only multiversal title.

3 July 2022 ☭ Cirelbourne Oval, Cirelbourne ☭ World Trophy III, Brookstation & Ko-oren, Group B
Result ☭ Ko-oren win by 1 wicket

A year's passage found both teams in rather happier circumstances; the Dragonflies, now led by Finley Meredith, were playing on home soil, while the Foxes were riding a wave of success that had begun with their unexpected victory in the Anaian One-Day Cricket Competition held that spring in Grande Cucina. Audrey Leggett had captained the Foxes in that tournament, owing to Kevin Laing's paternity leave, but the new father was back in Ko-oren and had led the Plough Islands to three consecutive victories to open the tournament as they looked more at ease than they had in either Liventia or Gruenberg.
On a bright, warm day in the Ko-orenite south, the Foxes were frantic, with Leggett, Shauna Weaver and Jannie Hendricks all posting fifty or more, but late wickets by the accurate fingerspinner Borllog yLellmedd kept the Plough Islands from passing 300, and that gave their opponents enough confidence to mount a slash and burn chase. Cofan ySalw, the Mawryshire batter and limited overs specialist making his World Trophy debut, was brilliant in his vision of and thirst for the boundary ropes, and desperately unlucky to knock over his own stumps one run short of a maiden century, but the rest of the Ko-orenite top and middle order picked up and ran with the mission in a way the Foxes seemed to yearn for.
Left-hander Ronald Taylor steadily and patiently anchored the rest of the Dragonflies' chase, with 71 not out his reward as despite Laing throwing everything he could at the men in green and blue, not even Andrew Baxter and Naomi Salisbury tearing into the tail could keep the inevitable from happening, and last man Augustus Smith held on for four overs and nine deliveries to help Taylor see the Dragonflies home. In the most straightforward format of a World Trophy so far, the result proved little more than a bump in the road for the Plough Islands as they finished top of the eight team Group B, with Ko-oren, as group runners up, also qualifying for a four-round knockout stage that kept our two countries travelling along separate paths.

19 July 2022 ☭ Greencaster Oval, Greencaster ☭ World Trophy III, Brookstation & Ko-oren, final
Result ☭ Plough Islands win by 3 wickets

When they met again, it was in the jewel of the Surbournshire coast, and the match was much more significant; not only would the winner receive the World Trophy itself, but it was also the first major sporting event since the Plough Islands had joined in the creation of the new regional bloc of Anaia to be contested solely between Anaian nations. To honour the association, and possibly to assuage Laing's superstitions as the previous defeat had come wearing red, the Plough Islands took to the field in the final in a one-off kit in the regional colours of dark purple and bright teal, an Anaian strip for an Anaian final.
For all the sense of occasion, the match would prove to be the least competitive of our countries' meetings in the World Trophy; having opted to bat, Meredith was left to rue that decision as Sarah Ashe and Naomi Salisbury kept a tight line with the ball to squeeze the Ko-orenite top order, and having stuttered to 194 in less than 45 overs, they were left needing a similarly dominant bowling performance to stay in the game. Unfortunately, they were facing Audrey Leggett in potentially the most form she had been in all through her long career. After losing Brett Scarbeck to a run out in the first over, she played much of her innings from an unusual guard position that seemed to assume the bowler was standing at backward point, but it kept her at the crease and did little to hinder the flow of runs; though Meredith's team were still taking regular wickets, they were never at the end that mattered. Leggett was determinedly scoring at such a rate that by the time she reached her hundred - despite her reputation, only her second in One Day Internationals - it was not a case of if the Plough Islands could reach the target, but how tight the Dragonflies could make the margin of victory.
The answer, it proved, was three wickets; Leggett hit a gigantic six that only innovations in architecture kept from leaving the Greencaster Oval premises entirely, before scampering an unselfish single and allowing Ashe, batting at nine, to guide yLellmedd to the leg side boundary and enter into modern Plough Islander folklore. The Ko-orenites were more than gallant losers; they had played their part in an extraordinary match with aplomb, and though the recollections of this writer are inevitably a little fuzzy, everyone who took part in the celebrations speaks to the Anaian players mingling freely well beyond the Salamantic Sea sunrise.

26 November 2023 ☭ The Bastion, Dover ☭ World Trophy IV, Liventia, Group A
Result ☭ Ko-oren win by 18 runs

Back in Liventia, and back in red, the Plough Islands came to Rushmore no longer as underdogs but as defending champions, and while the title was a heavy mental burden it showed few signs of affecting the Foxes physically until they reached Dover. Having chased low totals easily against Krytenia and Darmen, it had initially appeared that Thad Stanway's Dragonflies would meet the same fate when they were reduced to 50-4 with the fielding restrictions still in place.
Having fallen just short of three figures in his first attempt and been run out for just 8 in his second, Cofan ySalw had something of a point to prove against old rivals, and he stubbornly drilled the ball around the ground as he single handedly built Ko-oren up to a respectable total. With first Emory Wakin and then Darren Plier as support, both of whom made excellent half centuries, ySalw fought his way to the milestone, reaching 125 before being caught out by Shauna Weaver's part time leg spin. The three of them contributed 78% of the Ko-orenite total and took full advantage of a Plough Islander bowling attack that was too often wayward of the mark, conceding eleven wides as the Foxes' spinners struggled to adapt to the arid conditions of the central Liventian plateau.
Now the captain of her country, Weaver made 117 as she sought to take the game to the Dragonflies but, her performance aside, the Plough Islands suffered from a lack of urgency throughout most of their innings and this would be counted harshly against them at the end. The margin of victory flattered the chasing team; some late power hitting by Ilya Lebed and Sarah Ashe reduced the deficit considerably and allowed the Foxes to believe, but they went into the final over needing boundaries from every delivery and when Lebed could only cut Stanway's first ball into the leg side grass, the contest was effectively over. Ko-oren secured qualification to the next group stage with their victory, while the Plough Islanders would eke out a similar win over a dangerous Gruenberg side the following day to join them...

29 November 2023 ☭ National Centre of Excellence Oval, City Centre ☭ World Trophy IV, Liventia, Group F
Result ☭ Plough Islands win by 13 runs

Only three days later and halfway across the country, we met yet again, a farcical quirk of scheduling in a tournament that was seemingly structured so as to sap the stamina and test the tempers of everyone involved. Coming in the middle of a sequence of ten consecutive daily matches, the games had increasingly been decided on moments of inspiration or spirit rather than the successful execution of any organised plan, and so it proved at City Centre.
Opener Andrew Weaver had struggled to find his level since making his senior debut the previous year, but after losing partner Audrey Leggett early in the innings, he was joined by sister Shauna and the siblings together added over a hundred runs to take the game away from Stanway's team. Shauna fell for 71, but Andrew would go on to make his first international century before being caught for 136, and just as they had been in 2020, the Ko-orenites were constantly behind the run rate; though Lyofjall Firembee and Cofan ySalw put on 120 for the second wicket, an amplified echo of what the Weavers had done, tight bowling from Jonathan Iddon kept the Foxes' snouts in front and ensured that 344 was, barely, enough for the Plough Islands to defend.
With little time to reflect on the result, the islanders went on to lose their next two games, while a seemingly fired up Ko-oren, having been in danger of dropping into the lower half of the labyrinthian format, would win both of theirs. Again both teams would qualify for the next round, and the draw would have set up a repeat of the 2022 final had Sylestone not broken the Dragonflies' nerve in a tense semi final at Schimpol. It was left to the Plough Islands, with Ilya Lebed standing in as captain for an injured Shauna Weaver, to chase down the Hawthorns' total of 273 and win a second consecutive World Trophy title for our small country against the multiversal giants.

26 March 2025 ☭ Lawson Oval, Montebello ☭ World Trophy V, Kytler Peninsulae & Vielfaltig, Vielfaltigian Pool
Result ☭ Ko-oren win by 2 wickets

And so to last week, with the Ko-orenites led by another bowling captain in the shape of Mitchell Enright, and the Plough Islands back in purple with the methodical Paul Donaghy replacing the genial Lourens Hendricks on the dressing room balcony. This time, with the amount of teams in each pool exceeding the amount of scheduled matches, there was no guarantee that our countries would meet despite both being placed into the Vielfaltigian side of the tournament. When the fixtures were drawn, though, they had the Dragonflies and Foxes continuing their cycle on the final day of the first round.
Once again, the Foxes had started the tournament well; despite both Tjunia and the hosts running them close, they had won their first five matches to guarantee first place in the pool, but forced to bat on a difficult pitch at the Lawson Oval, the Plough Islanders struggled to score effectively at first and were effectively pegged back by all-rounder Algernon Renbeck. Though Peter Hodgeson's half century lifted them late on, their total of 199 was far below par and had come at the cost of a broken arm for Dimitry Andreyev from an unlucky bounce in the closing overs.
The abrupt removal of the Foxes' only fast bowler led to the unusual sight of Tim Bleasdale deputising as a medium pacer, much like Finley Meredith had done four years earlier. Unlike Meredith, there was to be no match-saving spell, and though Bleasdale's bowling was perfectly comptent, Cofan ySalw, once again, was in superb shape and there was the sense that even if Andreyev had been luckier and scored 200, it would not have been enough. ySalw met everything with the middle of the bat, and much like the 2022 final in reverse, there were not enough wickets that the Plough Islands could take to hold back the rain; he made 105 not out as he brought the Ko-orenites home with time and wickets to spare, though results elsewhere rendered the outcome of the match relatively meaningless in the wider context of the tournament. As in Ko-oren and in Liventia, however, events would conspire to make this the first of two matches between green and purple...

3 April 2025 ☭ Quanta Stadium, Montebello ☭ World Trophy V, Kytler Peninsulae & Vielfaltig, Semi Final
Result ☭ to be determined...

What sort of chapter, therefore, is tomorrow's game likely to write? If the previous seven matches are to be taken as a guide, it will be a close one - possibly decided at the outset, by the flick of a viel by Mitchell Enright or Shauna Weaver; possibly hinging on a moment of individual brilliance by Cofan ySalw or Naomi Salisbury. Possibly, perhaps even inevitably, something entirely unexpected will happen, maybe involving someone new, such as the young Richard Crichton. Or a veteran who knows how to rise to the moment, such as Reginald Twaddle, now thirty-two and at the peak of his powers.
Cricket, however, is not a sport of certainties or Bayesian priors, but a humbling game, one that delights in making the absurd possible and the far-fetched routine. We often say it as a reminder to ourselves, or a reassurance about this sport that we love, but anything could happen inside the stadium tomorrow - and we mean it in all sincerity. About all that can be guaranteed is that Weaver's Foxes will do their best for their country, in the spirit of socialism, but also with the best intentions of friendship with our fellow Anaians and friends from across the Celestial Ocean.
Of that much, and only that much, can we be reasonably certain.

PLOUGH ISLANDS CRICKET ASSOCIATION
XI FOR WORLD TROPHY VS.    KO-OREN

        PLAYER           BAT   BOW
#7  G   Forrester        LHB      
#18 ANL Weaver           RHB      
#1  SLC Weaver (c)       RHB   RLB
#5  TM  Bleasdale        RHB      
#13 ES  Nasrullin        LHB      
#11 P   Hodgeson         LHB   SLW
#12 IT  Lebed (w)        LHB      
#3  S   Ashe             RHB   ROB
#14 NA  Salisbury        LHB   SLA
#6  R   Crichton         RHB   RFS
#9  TSF Gibbs            RHB   RLB

by **Ko-oren** » Thu Apr 03, 2025 11:30 am

Ilohbonu is attracting all kinds of folks. The NCSE - National Centre for Sporting Excellence - embodies all great Ko-orenite values: competitiveness and self-improvement, or rather, merit. But sports are notoriously volatile from day to day, which is why, on top of the 'above board' components, rumours have it that they're working on some very different schemes.

As announced, the NCSE should bring together athletes for better personal development, academics for medical and biological research, and executives are there to figure out better ways to lead a club. You'll hear of clubs being run too emotionally. Buying and selling players they shouldn't, because they're not a stylistic fit, or they're just not worth the money the transfer market begs, etcetera. There are club owners who put inept people in place: either they can't lead a group, or they hold on to bad coaches and players for too long hoping that another chance will finally get them to glory, and so on. The NCSE wants better for Ko-orenite clubs. Player and coach evaluation from a vacuum, if at all possible. Objectively correct wages and transfer fees, based on what that player brings to the table at their new club. Making perfect mixes of young, old, motivated, visionary, athletic.

All that's fine.

But what the Ko-orenites have always wanted beyond all: remove chance from sports. Some sports come closer to that ideal than others: chess, for instance, eliminates a lot of random chance, such as weather, and the psyche of teammates. And yet, even the best chess player, anything short of a supercomputer, will have whims on any given day. A sudden rush to take a risk, do something unexpected. Or an ill-advised defensive move (and Margaret knows Ko-orenites tend to suffer of the latter rather than the former).

The goal isn't to play sports on paper exclusively. There's merit - there's that word again - in actually playing out the sport, if we're to believe Maéva Thwodhen of the NCSE's Shadow Department. You still need to test yourself, to prove that your methods were indeed correct. If they weren't, a loss is fair. But if you did everything right - your preparation immaculate, your mind under control, your tactics perfect - it should always result in a win to the team that out-prepared the other.

We might not get there this year, or this decade. But promising multiversal research into something called a Match Scorinator means that there are dimensions of sports that have so far been undetected. And undetectable. Any advantage that can be found, must be found, and used.

by **The Kytler Peninsulae** » Thu Apr 03, 2025 11:52 am

Vielfaltigian semifinal result

The Plough Islands 246 (32 overs)
Ko-oren 242/3 (50 overs)
The Plough Islands win by 4 runs and how in the name of Margaret are they going to explain this act of xkor

by **Vielfaltig** » Thu Apr 03, 2025 1:27 pm

Kytlerian Half SF

Darmen 199 (49.3 overs)
Sylestone 202/6 (33 overs)
Sylestone won by 4 wickets (102 balls remaining)

GCF World Trophy V Final
The Plough Islands vs Sylestone @ The Quanta Stadium, Montebello, Vielfaltig

by **Sylestone** » Sat Apr 05, 2025 6:26 am

Darmen Batting
Batter                                             R   B  4s  6s   SR
MS Brice           lbw b Asaskia                  26  37   3   0   70.27
T Maxwell          c Cocrine b Scron               4  22   0   0   18.18
W van der Zee      c Tiati (+) b Asaskia          10  24   1   0   41.67
K O'Callaghan      b Asaskia                      53  81   3   1   65.43
E English          c sub (Freehill) b Sonnel      42  62   2   0   67.74
R Breckinridge     c Hall b Sonnel                 0   3   0   0    
B Bachmann (c)     b Asaskia                      13  16   0   1   81.25
J Beckett (+)      c Tiati (+) b Asaskia           1   7   0   0   14.29
G Bean             c Asaskia b Cross              23  26   2   1   88.46
K Rosenfeld        lbw b McMillan                 19  17   3   0  111.76
I Snelling         not out                         0   2   0   0    
       EXTRAS      (1 b, 4 lb, 3 wd)               8
       TOTAL       all out                       199   (49.3 ov; 4.02 RPO)
                 

FOW: 1-17 (T Maxwell, 6.2 overs); 2-40 (MS Brice, 12.5 overs); 3-41 (W van der Zee, 14.3 overs); 
     4-116 (E English, 33.3 overs); 5-116 (R Breckinridge, 33.6 overs); 6-149 (B Bachmann (c), 39.4 overs); 
     7-155 (J Beckett (+), 41.3 overs); 8-156 (K O'Callaghan, 41.5 overs); 9-197 (K Rosenfeld, 48.4 overs); 
     10-199 (G Bean, 49.3 overs)

Sylestone Bowling
Bowler                Ov   M   R  W   Econ  Ext
S Scron               10   1  32  1    3.2  
J McMillan             8   0  37  1   4.63  (1 wd)
S Asaskia             10   2  34  5    3.4  
K Sonnel              10   0  44  2    4.4  (1 wd)
B Hall                 8   1  26  0   3.25  
S Cross              3.3   0  21  1      6  (1 wd)

Sylestone Batting   (Target: 200)
Batter                                             R   B  4s  6s   SR
L Tiati (c) (+)    c Rosenfeld b Snelling         29  45   3   0   64.44
B Golman           c Beckett (+) b Bean            5  11   0   0   45.45
N Lovia            b Bachmann                     12  13   2   0   92.31
S Asaskia          b Snelling                      7   8   1   0   87.5
L Cocrine          not out                        75  65   7   3  115.38
L Afosha           c English b Rosenfeld          34  31   5   0  109.68
S Cross            c Beckett (+) b English        21  18   2   1  116.67
B Hall             not out                         3   7   0   0   42.86
       EXTRAS      (2 lb, 14 wd)                  16
       TOTAL       for 6 wickets                 202   (33 ov; 6.12 RPO)
Did not bat:     J McMillan, S Scron, K Sonnel

FOW: 1-21 (B Golman, 3.6 overs); 2-41 (N Lovia, 8.1 overs); 3-53 (S Asaskia , 11.1 overs); 
     4-84 (L Tiati (c) (+), 15.5 overs); 5-155 (L Afosha, 25.2 overs); 6-189 (S Cross, 30.3 overs)

Darmen Bowling
Bowler                Ov   M   R  W   Econ  Ext
K Rosenfeld            7   0  38  1   5.43  (6 wd)
G Bean                 7   1  36  1   5.14  (6 wd)
B Bachmann (c)         6   0  42  1      7  (1 wd)
I Snelling             8   0  47  2   5.88  (1 wd)
E English              5   0  37  1    7.4  

Venue: National Oval, Roddens, The Kytler Peninsulae
Match number: Match 90
Toss: Darmen won the toss and elected to bat
Season: GCF ODI World Trophy V
Matchdays: Semifinal
Player of the Match: Samuel Asaskia (SYL)
Series result: 
Debut: 
Umpires: Unknown
TV Umpire: Unknown
Reserve Umpire: Unknown
Match Referee: Unknown
Match Result: Sylestone win by four wickets with 102 balls remaining

by **The Plough Islands** » Sat Apr 05, 2025 10:30 am

on the 4th April 2025, the Plough Islands Gazette wrote:
WORLD TROPHY: FOXES IMPROBABLY DEFEAT KO-OREN; IMPROBABILITY NEARLY DEFEATS BOTH
by Denis Wormwood, Sporting Correspondent, in Montebello

The Plough Islands have defeated Ko-oren to reach a third successive World Trophy final in Montebello, with Shauna Weaver's team recovering from a poor start thanks to Tim Bleasdale's unbeaten 111 to post 246, before benefiting from a number of events that included two accidental injuries to Ko-orenite players and a nearly five hour delay following a security breach that saw Reginald Twaddle, carrying his bat for 111, narrowly fail to get the Dragonflies over the line as the Foxes won by four runs.
The preceding sentence is the plain facts of what happened, but let it suffice to say that this author has over thirty years behind him of cricketing experience, from following the sport from afar, through bowling googlies for Red Star Academy second elevens, to over a decade of writing for the Gazette and in other journals - and yet still is failed by his modest command of the English language and his knowledge of the sport in summarising what happened in Montebello on Thursday night. No adjective or adverbs in the world exist that can convey the full breadth of what happened, or the extent to which, as the double Nelsons above may hint, it kept happening, than to describe it as fully as is possible within the confines of this organ.
To start at the beginning, the Plough Islands were forced on to the back foot before a ball had been bowled. Even before the toss, both Weaver and Mitchell Enright had agreed that the pitch was one that they wanted to bat on as late as possible, and when the Foxes captain called tails and was met with a head, it heralded what would be a difficult opening few overs for the defending champions. Duly put into bat, Gabriel Forrester and Andrew Weaver went out before the packed stadium and came back almost as quickly as they had left, as Ko-oren's fast bowling pair of Walter Dencherry and the young prodigy, Iris Thugalihadhen, found their lines and lengths almost immediately on the pitch to dominate completely the Plough Islander top order. The pair took two wickets apiece as the Foxes crumbled first to 27 for 3 and then 61 for 5, aided by a reflexive dive by Dencherry to run out Peter Hodgeson at the non-striker's end before he had even faced a ball.
Standing at the epicentre of the collapse was Bleasdale; the 35 year old had been recalled to the side in place of Arnold Tyrie, leading to his batting unusually high up the order, and seemed the only player able to hold the line against the Dragonflies' onslaught - and soon, as the threat loomed of being bundled out for under a hundred, the only player capable of anchoring a fightback against the Dragonflies, which he set about doing with weighty determination. He was aided in his forlorn quest by Ilya Lebed and Sarah Ashe, who both knuckled down and played admirably in support, but Bleasdale took on the majority of the balls with reckless abandon; either out of a sense of warrior's honour and pride, or more likely a determination to get runs on the board by whatever means were found necessary, striding all around the crease and even twirling his bat lasso-style as he met a short ball from Algernon Renbeck over the top of his helmet to guide it for four.
There may well have been a personal dimension to his innings, as he raced towards and then past the half century mark with distinct intent even as wickets fell; in forty-eight previous innings he had never scored more than 85 for his adopted country, but Renbeck and Thugalihadhen unwittingly set up the right-hander for the record, before a low full toss from the latter was picked early and Bleasdale had the time to position himself for the shot. He probably would have had time to pick his aiming point, arrange for photographs, and telephone the radio to let them know what was about to happen, but he swept the ball backwards over the square leg boundary for six to score his first One Day International century, welcoming it with a fist-beating, leg-pounding, voice-straining display that seemed more suited to winning the match entirely.
Perhaps there was a psychological advantage to whatever Bleasdale was doing, because he remained there at the end, even as Enright finally found a way through Ashe's defences after the drinks break in the thirtieth over. The Dragonflies were now into the soft underbelly of their rivals, and though Naomi Salisbury contributed a boundary, and Richard Crichton two, Dencherry returned and uprooted Crichton's stumps to signal the approaching end, before a slower ball the next delivery deceived the hapless Terry Gibbs to make the end official, and leave Bleasdale stranded on 111.
With the Swift batter's efforts dragging the target from the threatened sub-100 to 247, Enright and the Ko-orenites knew they would be well set if Twaddle and Stanley Langhorne could get quick, early runs, and when Twaddle paddled Crichton's second delivery back down past umpire Burnadette Taylor for four, there was very little to indicate the chase would be anything more than routine for the men in green. For ten overs, the only thing capable of checking the Dragonflies' progress was a freak accident; after being hit for two fours in two balls, Crichton tried coming around the wicket to Langhorne, but slipped in his run-up and launched an accidental beamer that found the Ko-orenite veteran's fingers at 140 kilometres an hour. It was a glancing blow, but enough for the experienced batsman to drop to his knees and frantically signal for assistance with his good hand. His contribution to the innings would end with ice packs and a resigned trudge back up to the dressing rooms, and a mortified Crichton was quietly pulled from the attack.
Twaddle carried on building his total quietly through the fielding restrictions and beyond, taking full advantage of some poor control from Gibbs - the Sutton leg-spinner had replaced Crichton from the pavilion end, but it was not one of his finer days in purple and green - and though he lost Theophilus Armfellow soon after the power play, trapped plumb by Salisbury, this barely dented the Ko-orenite progress and with new batter Cofan ySalw making a strong start, the Dragonflies seemed poised to move through the gears and wrap up a simple chase. Gibbs was himself replaced by Hodgeson as Weaver began to search for ideas, but Twaddle calmly met the New Hibernian left-armer's first ball with the middle of the bat and sent it towards the midwicket boundary. Bleasdale dived after the ball and got just enough of an outstretched arm to deflect it away from the boundary before he slid into the gaudy slabs of foam himself, at which point an unknown figure began to sprint in from long on, carrying a banner torn such as to render the text on it illegible, and any sense of normality in the game abruptly left for a holiday in a quiet cabin overlooking a rocky beach.
The Vielfaltigian security forces and crowd control within the stadium had been invisibly efficient until now, and with attentions understandably diverted on the pitch it was never clear whether they had just had a lapse in concentration, or whether the baggy clothes and several days' worth of stubble on the man in question had provided some protection from the stewards as they tried in vain to stop him. Whatever the reason, the invader shed his jacket, and a brightly coloured flag, and made it on to the outfield before heading straight for Salisbury, who first tried to shrug off the unwanted attention and then side stepped to nudge the offender towards the pitch. He briefly shifted his attentions to umpire Taylor, but her raised talons convinced him otherwise and he instead skipped down the wicket and was abruptly collected mid-run by ySalw, with the imposing Mawr taking it upon himself to pin the intruder's arms to his sides in one motion and allow the chasing security to restore order.
That would have been that, except that Bleasdale, having been largely oblivious to the commotion in the middle, had retrieved the ball at the second attempt and had wound back his arm to throw back to Hodgeson before he had fully appreciated the scene before him. His decision to follow through had merit, under the circumstances, but his aim unfortunately did not, as the ball arced perfectly through the air and delivered a long range sucker punch to the helmet of ySalw. The right-hander dropped like a stone as the intruder wriggled free and made for the slip cordon, the stewards frantically scrambled to change direction, and Bleasdale clapped his hand to his mouth in genuine horror.
If the truth be told, this would hardly have merited a mention were it not for the farcical turn events subsequently took, less Bertolt Brecht and more Frankie Howerd. With the match already interrupted - though Syreswain Quickfinger had, ironically, failed to call a dead ball - and Dragonflies and Foxes alike gathered around the collapsed ySalw, the stadium feed of the radio commentary was abruptly cut and a number of armed police officers entered the media centre, instructing all present - including this author - to evacuate the premises. The assembled media duly did so, finding ourselves funnelled chaotically to one of several holding areas in and around the adjacent stadia along with eighty thousand other spectators, with no immediate explanation as to how or why. It would be half an hour before a suspiciously authoritative statement from a moustached police captain linked the now apprehended intruder to the separatist Marignien Liberation Group, offering no substantial evidence of this, and further stated that a large canvas bag associated with the suspect was being investigated by trained explosives officers and that play had been suspended until the investigation was complete.
This led to a ripple of panic among the spectators, although the more seasoned locals tempered this with frustration, divided approximately equally between the police and the Global Cricket Federation, who were conspicuous in their absence from the situation. The press were left to rely on each other and our respective comrades within the teams for further information, and enquiries established at least that ySalw was conscious and talking, albeit unlikely to play any further part in the match should it resume. The 'should' was load bearing; with less than fifteen overs completed of the Ko-orenite reply, nobody - not even Cde Dale Piper, the former Premier attending the semi final in his capacity as the President of the Plough Islands Cricket Association and being roughly manhandled by the police as he tried to gain access to his team - was at all sure what might happen to the match, or how a winner might be decided.
Eventually, fully four hours and two remotely controlled explosions after the last ball, the Montebello State Police declared far from convincingly that there was no further threat to the public, and shortly after that the match referee, Klaus Shah announced that the game would instead conclude under floodlights, with the full complement of overs to be bowled. This was met with some surprise; Weaver later told this author that although she had agreed with Enright and Shah that the match would be completed on the day if possible, she was surprised that this was actively followed through after the sun had set, particularly as, despite the attempts at reassurance of the police captain, officers prevented either side from re-entering the stadium for forty-five minutes.
When they did, Twaddle took his guard in front of those supporters who had endured the wait, and shaped up to try and complete the chase as quickly as possible; the Ko-orenite momentum had been stolen by the enforced delay, though, and with a new partner under much changed conditions the challenge was rather different. The pitch remained no more or less difficult than it was, but with the warm, gentle heat and infinite light of the Esportivan sun giving way to a cold, artificial glare and a crisp breeze, everything seemed to be bouncing, drifting, and turning quicker than it had been, and runs were suddenly a lot harder to come by, with the scoreboard slowing to a trickle. The wicket of Conor yAraidd, whose speculative toe poke to a quicker than usual Ashe delivery was snatched by a diving Lebed, set Enright's team back even further, and as Ashe completed an unexpected wicket maiden new questions began to hang in the air; with Twaddle starting to get bogged down in the eighties, twelve overs still to play, and the required rate now edging above a run a ball, were the Plough Islands capable of holding off the Dragonflies?
The shift in atmosphere was evident in Weaver's bowling strategy, as the Foxes captain went from having fingerspin at both ends to run through the overs as quickly as possible, to restoring Crichton to the attack and being rewarded immediately as Twaddle and Renbeck struggled against his speed under floodlights, and then persuading Bleasdale to rejoin the attack following his enforced cameo against the Ko-orenites at the Lawson Oval. Then, his trundling medium pace had been a blunt instrument deployed as a last resort; now, his accuracy and relative economy was a boon, the Liverpudlian thrust into the literal spotlight as the right man for the right time.
With two overs and little more than a scattering of spectators remaining to witness Twaddle's century, the Dragonflies had worn down the deficit to fifteen runs, but the fielding strategy for Bleasdale was working; with no slips to speak of and four fielders on the boundary, Renbeck and Twaddle could not find the ropes at the time they most desperately needed to, and the tension reached breaking point with Bleasdale's second to last ball, a relatively tame length to Butler. The left hander swung violently at the ball, flinging perspiration from beneath his helmet grille, and found nothing as Bleasdale's ball continued with an intent much like his wayward throw from earlier, and delivered a close range sucker punch to the middle stump of Renbeck. This time, he covered his face out of joy and disbelief, and all Renbeck could do was shake his head, and perhaps take some consolation in the knowledge that next man Valentine Butler had more than enough power to clear the boundary.
Butler duly did so - turning Bleasdale behind the wicket to keep the strike, before sending the first ball of Crichton's last over to cow corner for six - but found himself trapped in the corridor of uncertainty from the young New Hibernian's second and third, and could only nudge his next delivery to square leg to bring Twaddle back on strike for the fourth. Mathematically, Twaddle had to score, but he lost his grip on the bat and could not clear Salisbury at mid on, and a single was all he could manage - Butler would need a boundary to tie, or five or six to win, from the last ball, and having carried his bat the opener would be stuck on 111.
Butler and Crichton would need to wait a long time to find out what it would be; the eighteen year old sought and received counsel from practically every islander on the field, and it was nearly eleven o'clock at night, far beyond broadcasters' estimates and approaching the print deadline of the Gazette, before he found his mark for the last delivery of the match. He ran past Quickfinger, Butler tensed up, and the ball rose gently off short of a length and the Ko-orenite wicketkeeper backpedalled to try and meet it with the full face of the bat. The cut was too late, and the ball took a thick edge up into the Montebello night before dropping harmlessly in front of Hodgeson on the leg side - an relatively easy catch went begging only because the all-rounder had started celebrating before the ball even fell; the latest, longest, and most ridiculous of One Day International matches had ended with the Plough Islands stealing the least credible of victories.
By now, the state police had taken it upon themselves to bar anyone from re-entering the stadium complex for any reason, so it was an exhausted pair of captains, and a Bleasdale fuelled wholly by adrenaline and barley sugar, that faced up to little more than half a dozen journalists after the match. Enright looked like a man who would rather be anywhere else in the world, but he could have been little more complimentary of the twenty-two players that had taken the field. "It's obviously not the result we wanted, not the result we expected, but Shauna and her team faced up to the situation better than we did and the numbers don't lie. I don't think we could have done much more than we did in the last few overs." Weaver told this author that she had mixed feelings about the result - "I think in the moment out there it was relief, as much as it was celebration - really, the way this has been handled has not been what was best for the game of cricket. Probably when we look back at this, we will be able to get a little more happiness, but at the moment I just feel numb..." - but that she was proud of how the team had played.
"I mean, Tim saved us really with what he did with the bat. But everyone played their part after the delay" Weaver explained. "We kept our spirits up as high as we could, and then we knew what we needed to do to restrict Ko-oren and we did it, and it all worked out, just! Our fielding was really good in the death overs, and that is the sort of thing that makes a difference at this stage." For his part, Bleasdale was certain only that the game had been a unique experience to be part of. "I mean, I've never had any belief but something was up with that match." the matchwinner told this author. "Who'd a thought, right, Tim the wickie from Formby gets an international wicket? Did you see that me and Reg from Ko-oren ended up on the exact same score? What's going on with that one, la? Just utter madness..."
Indeed, such was the chaos surrounding the day that Angus Haggerston from the Krytenian Post had to inform, or remind, Weaver and Bleasdale of who they would face in the final in two days' time. "Sylestone? That will be difficult...they did not seem to be having the best time earlier in the tournament, in the Kytler Peninsulae, but they are hitting their stride when they need it most. It should be a good game for the neutrals, they know us very well and particularly after last year's final!". Bleasdale concurred with his captain - "They're a tough side, they are. Luke Tiati looked brutal in that game against Kimi Suomi..." - and Weaver said the Plough Islands would need to redouble their efforts if they were to edge out the Hawthorns and secure another title. "We struggled with the top order today, we were very lucky to have Tim and Ilya and Sarah come through for us, and we got very fortunate with our bowling, but Sylestone will punish the slightest mistake hard and we need to be a lot tighter against them. We need to work on our mental strength, come together with the support from our comrades back on the islands, and try and draw all the strength we can from them." Bleasdale was less equivocal. "I dunno about Shauna," the wicketkeeper laughed, "but I'm just gonna go to bed!"
While the Plough Islands were, ultimately, lucky to have benefited from the delay and be in a position for Weaver to have executed her strategy, there is an urgent need to discuss the systems that underly all these problems - though the Plough Islands benefited from the circumstances and Enright was brave in fronting it to the media, the result was not one anyone would have wanted to work with, despite the best efforts of the host nations to mitigate the repercussions, and a workable path forward must be found for the good of our sport.
And there will be more than enough time yet to have those discussions - there is hard work to be done, one more match for Weaver and her comrades to prepare for. They can wait until after the trophy is awarded, and we along with a hundred and forty thousand Plough Islanders can either congratulate and commiserate after a worthy successor is found for the title of cricketing World Trophy champion, or celebrate and commemmorate the achievements of a Foxes side that may yet again have done the impossible, and struck a blow for communism and community against the neo-imperialist hegemony that claims dominance of the wider multiverse.
But this author has been writing for far too long, and now will take the advice of the man whose persistence and force of will won the most improbable game of cricket ever to involve the Plough Islands, and try to get some sleep.

PLOUGH ISLANDS CRICKET ASSOCIATION
XI FOR WORLD TROPHY VS.  SYLESTONE

        PLAYER           BAT   BOW
#15 BK  Scarbeck         RHB      
#18 ANL Weaver           RHB      
#1  SLC Weaver (c)       RHB   RLB
#5  TM  Bleasdale        RHB      
#13 ES  Nasrullin        LHB      
#11 P   Hodgeson         LHB   SLW
#12 IT  Lebed (w)        LHB      
#3  S   Ashe             RHB   ROB
#14 NA  Salisbury        LHB   SLA
#6  R   Crichton         RHB   RFS
#9  TSF Gibbs            RHB   RLB

by **The Kytler Peninsulae** » Sat Apr 05, 2025 11:31 am

Final result

The Plough Islands 377/8 (50 overs)
Sylestone 306/8 (50 overs)
The Plough Islands win by 71 runs and are the GCF World Trophy V winners!

Thanks for the ride, everyone. Hope you enjoyed, and apologies if my attempts to help xkor out only made it worse :lol:

by **The Plough Islands** » Sat Apr 19, 2025 5:00 am

As a former journalist, Shauna Weaver, the captain of the Plough Islands cricket team, had often wondered about the very particular turns of phrase that felt indigenous to writing about sport in particular; combinations of words that were rare in casual English, like "rolling with the punches", something she was relieved never to have had to do, or, more curiously, "all over bar the shouting". Originally referring to a result that was certain but which had not yet been celebrated and deriving from a nineteenth century understanding of 'shout', the expression came to refer to events where the outcome was a foregone conclusion, as it was first recorded in British equestrian journals in 1834.
One hundred and ninety one years later, and many thousands of kilometres away, the fifth Global Cricket Federation World Trophy final was, very literally, all over bar the shouting. In its modern sense, it had arguably been so for Weaver's Foxes after a lucky Terry Gibbs direct hit at the non-striker's end had, after several minutes of projection screen deliberation by the third umpire, run out Samuel Asaskia, ending a one-man and seventy-four run crusade against the dying of the light and robbing Sylestone of their last genuine hope of chasing down the Plough Islands' 377 with twenty-one overs left to bat. The writer in Weaver, always searching for an angle and a way to tell the story, could not help but notice that her team's third World Trophy final had possibly been their most dominant victory yet, and as a Plough Islander she could not deny the immense pride she felt in, once again, her small band of socialists going up against the capitalist, imperialist, limitlessly resourced masses of the world and coming out on top once more.
As a captain, though, Weaver felt there was always something that left her unsatisfied about winning while defending a total, particularly when - as Sylestone had done - the chasing team had doggedly refused to be bowled out. Long though the Hawthorns' tail was, they knew how to hold a bat, and the dawning hopelessness of the match situation had freed Liam Afosha and Samuel Cross to lift their shoulders and play with a freedom that Weaver, standing in the slips with Tim Bleasdale, had envied; the twenty-one overs after Asaskia's dismissal drifted by languidly and lazily, as the sun hung low in the Montebello sky. Wicket celebrations gradually began to lose their energy as it became clear their opponents would cling on until the end, and while the vast swathes of neutrals and small pocket of Plough Islanders in the crowd had started counting down until the result was mathematically certain, they had mostly forgotten by the time that moment came around in the penultimate over and it went all but unremarked.
The end, when it came, was therefore an anticlimax; Sylestone had more than earned the pride they were playing for, and even Weaver had applauded when Cross had flicked Richard Crichton through the covers to bring up his side's 300. The young fast bowler had followed up by pretending to bowl a comical bouncer in mock frustration, to some laughter even from the two men in orange, but a few more legitimate balls, a few quickly run singles, and a few pre-emptive words of congratulation and commiseration later, the competition was won, not in a single, primal moment of release but in a cascade of relief. So it was just as well, Weaver thought, that the Plough Islands had the trophy raising, to properly give them a moment to remember and keep in their hearts. Waiting with her comrades on the side of the stage beyond the boundary, Weaver wanted that moment more than most.
In 2022 in Greencaster, Kevin Laing was the captain, and Weaver's performance in the final had been middling at best; though she had taken the wicket of Borllog yLellmedd as the Ko-oren tail finally died, she had hoped to make headway towards the hosts' total of 194 but was caught out by how quickly she was called upon after Brett Scarbeck had fallen in just the second over, she had flailed against a Ko-orenite bowling attack that seemed only to get faster and closer to her outside edge, until she hesitated was bowled through the gate for only nineteen runs. The day had instead belonged to the irrepressible Audrey Leggett, whose 120 not out had carried the Foxes to victory over their Anaian friends and rivals, and Weaver felt her own role in the tournament was tarnished by her failure to end it on a high note.
A year later in Orean, Weaver was now the captain, but she had worn the title too awkwardly and too heavily, to the point that it had threatened to drag her down before the tournament had finished had an ankle injury not done so first. Sylestone had been the opponents then too, but she could only watch from the dressing room balcony at the Park Central Oval as her predecessor hit an unbeaten 106 before Dimitry Andreyev had driven Caitlyn Freehill to the boundary to secure a second successive title. True, her hands had been on the trophy, but the encumberance of two wooden crutches meant that Ilya Lebed had lifted it, the wicketkeeper having had the asterisk against his name on the day as the foreman for a loose collective of senior players that had included Laing and Leggett.
But now, in Montebello, though Weaver had not been solely responsible for the Foxes' victory, she had at the very least been its architect. It had been her turn to hit a century in a World Trophy final; her 140 had not been an unbeaten one, with a straining grasp from Asaskia to field off his own bowling denying her the chance to repeat her trick from the Anaian One Day Cricket Championship, but she had helped her country to their second highest score of the tournament. Even so, Sylestone were a team fully capable of chasing that and more, but the Plough Islands had exerted control relatively early in their innings, and Weaver wanted to imagine that was at least partially down to her captaincy. She had kept her trust in Gibbs after a disappointing tournament thus far, and the Sutton legspinner had repaid her hope with three crucial early wickets even before running out Asaskia to fatally wound the Hawthorns' chances.
Now, as they waited to receive the trophy once more, Gibbs was as happy as Weaver had ever seen him; as the mass of green and purple harmlessly jostled on the stage, he was virtually hanging from the shoulder of Bleasdale, who had both the bowler and Lebed wrapped in a bear hug on each arm. The veteran Liverpudlian seemed to be delighting in the occasion, standing his ground at the very front of the Foxes' squad, and the evident relish with which Bleasdale marked out his place in the team stirred a wound in Weaver's soul. It had, she sighed inwardly, been a fight to keep him in the side in the face of some impenetrable and inflexible decision making; in particular, Bleasdale's loud insistence behind closed doors that prejudice had been behind his exclusion had lodged deep in the mind. Casting her eyes to her left, Weaver could spot head coach Paul Donaghy, who had been warm and congratulatory in the glow of victory but still seemed, the captain felt, to meticulously be keeping his distance from his team. And ever since she had won the battle over recalling Bleasdale to the side, after what felt like hours of tense meetings that skirted the edges of civility, that gap had felt a little larger, a touch deeper. Even with the Scouser having blazed a quick half century earlier in the day, Weaver could sense the dispute was far from over.
It felt like a mere quibble; Bleasdale, and the Whitby-born opener Brett Scarbeck, had more than proven their allegiance through their deeds, at least in the mind of the captain. In any case, Weaver felt, back to back to back titles could only help the cause of her small country, and its Premier, Arthur Gibbs, who she could spy beyond Donaghy standing with Dale Piper, the President of the Plough Islands Cricket Association, and match referee Caoimhin Ó Daibhidh as they waited for the emcee to finish his wholly too lengthy introductions. Weaver knew Cde Piper well, of course; the former Premier, and Plough Islands Air Force opening batsman-cum-political officer, was not one to hide his heart away in sporting matters, but equally she took heart from the polite smile playing across the face of his successor; she had got to know Cde Gibbs a little better over the sixteen months of his Premiership, and certainly enough to know the depth of feeling that lay behind his pale lips. If the arguments over selection should continue, she hoped she could count on some formidable support.
A swell in the capacity crowd, though, together with a nudge from her left, jolted Weaver out of her thoughts and up towards the front of the stage, as Ó Daibhidh steadied himself to present the trophy and the emcee patted the Foxes captain on the back. The reckoning could wait. For the third time in as many years, the World Trophy belonged to the Plough Islands.

GCF World Trophy V | IC thread

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