This year’s Welsh Varsity T20 was once again hosted at Sophia Gardens, on a glorious day in the Welsh capital. The Swans won the toss and elected to bowl first, no doubt hoping to restrict Cardiff to a chaseable total and stop them from claiming a 10th victory in a row: a remarkable achievement.
These hopes were jilted early by openers Karl Leathley and Ben Garrett, taking 14 from the first over and setting the tone for the Cardiff innings in dominant fashion. This onslaught by the two Cardiff openers continued through the first powerplay, with Leathley hitting a number of impressive sixes over the midwicket boundary into the jovial Sophia Garden crowd.
The openers continued scoring freely against the Swansea bowlers, feeling no real friction and batting with great success. In the 12th over Cardiff suffered their first setback with the loss of Garrett to Swansea bowler Huw Wheeler, for a very well made 58(38) which was much appreciated by the Cardiff supporters.
The Swansea bowling attack struggled, with the 6th over being dispatched by Ben Garrett, leaving Cardiff with a powerplay total of 72 for the loss of no wickets.
This brought fast scoring number 3 Hugo Caldicott to the crease who took no time in continuing the tone set by the two before him. Caldicott scored 2 boundaries in the next 2 overs, keeping Cardiff’s score ticking. Though once again, Cardiff was set back with Wheeler taking his second wicket, the prized scalp of left-hander Karl Leathley, who left the field with a well made 63(39) including 5 sixes.
With James Dodds now joining Caldicott, Swansea managed to keep Cardiff quieter than the earlier mayhem of boundaries. Cardiff eventually finished on an extremely comprehensive total of 219/3, Caldicott being not out on 44, joined by Brendan Hildrebrand on 12 also not out.
The two Swansea openers strode to the crease after the break undoubtedly eager to put a dent into Cardiff’s huge total. These hopes suffered an early setback with Ben Clements running through the Swansea openers defence, castling his stumps in the second over and then following up his early breakthrough with a maiden over in his second, bowling at serious pace.
Swansea limped through their powerplay to a score of 33/3 with additional breakthroughs from Toby Whelan in the 5th over and a stunning runout from Teddy Flemming in the offside, a bad omen for the Swansea innings, and something which the Cardiff crowd made known their appreciation of.
Mataranyika impressed very much in this middle period— bowling tight lines, the Swansea batsmen struggled to get away, finishing with figures of 1 wicket for 9 runs from his 4 overs including the second maiden of the match. The other two standout bowlers for Cardiff were Toby Whelan and Teddy Flemming, both claiming two wickets apiece and going at run rates of 5 and 3.5 respectively.
Outside the powerplay, Swansea continued to be squeezed and were slumping in the face of very tight bowling from the aforementioned Whelan and off-spinner Tendekai Mataranyika.
The tight bowling from all of the Cardiff bowlers reflected clearly in Swansea’s final score from their full allotment, with the Swans limping up to 101/9, therefore losing by the significant margin of 118 runs.
This commanding victory is a testament to the quality of the Cardiff team and their coach Ali Waldron who clearly worked extremely hard in building the confidence and skills to win for the 10th time in a row.