Summer rain failed to dampen the spirits as St Albans Cricket Club hosted the first-ever St Albans Big Bash.
The T20 competition, run as part of the club’s festival of cricket, saw seven social teams from across the district battle for the title along with a squad from St Albans.
The event ran for the week with the sides eventually whittled down to just two in time for Sunday’s final at Clarence Park.
With Verulam School’s playing fields on Sandpit Lane also being used to host matches, the first games got underway on Monday.
Killigrew beat Gardenfields at Clarence Park, while Park Street Dads had enough in the locker to see off Sad Fat Dads With Pads.
AECOM won by seven wickets in the third game, beating St John Fisher, with the last semi-final spot being taken by St Albans Cricket Club XI who won by 60 runs against Verulam Dads.
The rain reared its head for the first time in the first semi-final, a match reduced to 16 overs.
Park Street Dads hit 98-3, taking them past Killigrew and into the final.
The second semi saw AECOM unable to repeat their heroics from the quarter-final as they crashed out to the hosts.
St Albans won the toss in the final, opting to bat, and a fast start saw openers Nauman Nisar and Stuart Murray both retire on the obligatory 25.
This was a theme that continued with several further St Albans batsmen reaching their limit of 25 runs.
The rules do say, however, that you retire a the end of the over in which the 25 comes up.
That allowed Moksudul Islam to get to 38 from just 17 balls.
In the end Saints made 197-2, an impressive total which proved too much of a mountain to climb for the Park Street Dads.
They did give it a good go mind, only losing by 54 runs after making 143-9 in their 20 overs.
St Albans skipper Adam Murphy was presented with the trophy by the Deputy Mayor of St Albans at the end of the match.
A spokesman for the club said: “It was a fantastic team effort from all of the St Albans players involved in the three matches to secure the trophy.
“A big thanks goes to John Webber who conceived and organized the whole event along with all the match managers, scorers, umpires, pizza orderers, bar staff and others who helped make it such a great success.”
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