The sun shone, there were few clouds in the sky and it became warm to hot for the eight schools playing in the closing phases of the 2016 North Peel Girls Cricket Championships on Thursday (May 20, 2016). The Dixie/Highway 407 soccer and cricket grounds offered little protective cover for humans, but various birds were able to seek refuge in the tall grasslands or in some ponds. Some Canada geese opted to have a dip in the water as the day grew warmer, others likely flew north seeking a cooler spot.

The top two school teams from four qualifying events had qualified for these playoffs, but two of the schools were unable to play on Friday and substitute schools took part. This allowed two groups of four schools to compete in a round-robin phase before the top in each group met to decided the 2016 North Peel Champions. The group runners-up met in a game to decide third-place.

Sunny View Middle School beat Beryl Ford Public School in the Final. Scoring details of this game and, hopefully, summary scores for all games played in the qualifying phases and in Friday’s playoffs will be reported within the next week. Various aspects of logistics took precedence after the final ended and as team photos of the finalists were being taken, the third place game came to an end. School buses had arrived to pick up the teams, and the odd bit and piece of clothing was noticed, lacking apparent owner or owners as the playing areas and open seats were cleared.

Beryl Ford’s opening bats seemed to be picking up some runs off the bat and wides without much danger in the first three overs of a maximum six over innings. The fourth over saw the two openers caught and bowled, then the number three batter provided variety by being caught in the square leg area. This over showed the value of bowling a reasonable line. The same bowler (wearing #15) returned for the sixth over and Beryl Ford’s innings ended with a dot ball.

Sunny View’s batters seemed keen to get the score ticking quickly. An approach where an early run out was followed by a good catch in the covers in the opening over. Aggressive running then gained at least one run but saw a wicket fall in a bid for an extra overthrow. Another run out followed in the third over before a left-handed batter moved out to attack a flighted delivery and was bowled.

Cutting a potential long, ball-by-ball story short, Sunny View kept seeking runs and went on to win the game. The batters kept the fielders and bowlers under pressure in this chase to victory.

In truth, I had decided to watch the final sat in a spot shaded by one of the sightscreens. An area with some damp clover and a hamstring suddenly caused a touch of cramp as the game entered the crucial closing overs. A pity I had not used a video recorder for this final, but there had been uncertainty on clearance/consent to photograph all the participants in the day’s cricket. It transpired that all would have been well for the playoff games when hearing that team photos were being sought for school records and displays! So I joined in the team photo taking activities and expect to check Friday’s game scoresheets some time next week.

There’s a lot of logistical effort in the hosting of these events and there was obvious enthusiasm in playing and learning to play cricket. It would be useful to have a cast of cricket coaches around to help guide and supervise some of the players as they practiced when their school was not playing a game.

Congratulations to Sunny View Middle School for winning this 2016 North Peel Cricket Championship for girls. Best wishes to all the players, coaches, supporting teachers and others involved in making this tournament a success. Hopefully more opportunities may be opened for girls and women’s cricket in the Greater Toronto Area, and for cricket to become better understood by the broader community.

Special thanks to Zubin Surkari for letting me know about today’s event.

Eddie Norfolk