The 5th edition of The Prideview Cricketers’ Cup (PCC), contested on Saturday 16th July ’16, was once again a huge success, with a sultry day at the luscious grounds of Merchant Taylors’ School capped off by a record amount of £18,630 being raised for our chosen charity, One Kind Act!
Click here to see the pictures!
Thank you to all participants, donors, sponsors and volunteers on the day for this fantastic effort!! Click here to see the tournament brochure once again, giving details of all the participants and sponsors.
The aim of the event as always is to provide a fun day out for the property industry and raise as much money as possible for charity. The funds raised from this year’s tournament will go to One Kind Act, a small charity with a mission to bring about sustainable change in some very impoverished locations worldwide, with particular emphasis on two projects – one being a school for blind children in Mumbai, India and the other being an orphanage in Tanzania.
The Group Stages
In total, 12 teams participated in a fantastic day of cricket, networking and fundraising. With 4 years of history before us, we were able to seed 4 teams into each of the 4 groups, with the remaining teams decided by a draw. The seeded teams progressed first in all but one of the groups, that was Group 2 where both 2014 champions Logicare and 2012 champions John Cumming Ross were turned over by State Bank of India in two thrilling contests.
The Ladies Bowl-Out
After the conclusion of the group stages, the many weary players took the opportunity to kick back, have some tea and watch the Ladies in action, as slowly but surely most of the female spectators in the crowd had a go at knocking down the stumps. Sadly their accuracy was about as good as their male counterparts and only Shreya Shah of John Cumming Ross came up trumps, hitting the wicket no less than 3 times in her 5 attempts!
The Knockout Stages
Play once again resumed as we entered the knockout stages of the main tournament (The Prideview Cricketers’ Cup), the plate tournament (The Prideview Champions Trophy) and the losers’ playoffs, or what we prefer to call The Best of the Rest. There was also supposed to be a Wooden Spoon match for the worst two teams in the tournament, however Bellevue Mortlakes were just too demoralised to partake (or more interested in the bar) and forefeited the match to new entrant H&C Architects. The results of the other knockout games were as follows:
Best of The Rest: John Cumming Ross beat Vascroft Contractors by 8 runs
Prideview Champions Trophy Semi 1: Logicare beat InvestIn Education by 69 runs
Prideview Champions Trophy Semi 2: Smith & Williamson beat HT Drinks by 9 runs
Prideview Champions Trophy Final: Logicare beat Smith & Williamson by 23 runs and won The Prideview Champions Trophy for the 2nd time!
Prideview Cricketers’ Cup Semi 1: Jade Pharmacy beat State Bank of India by 13 runs
Prideview Cricketers’ Cup Semi 2: Prideview beat Monarch Commercial by 11 runs
Prideview Cricketers’ Cup 3rd / 4th Play-off: Monarch Commercial beat State Bank of India by 16 runs
Raffle & Auction
With all gathered once again for our charity raffle and auction, it was over to John Townsend, former auctioneer at CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield & consultant at Harold Benjamin, to auction off 4 fantastic lots supplied to us by some of cricket’s greats. The auction was a resounding success raising £5,900, with framed bats signed by Joe Root and Alastair Cook being sold for £900 and £1,000 respectively, one to a proxy bidder from Allsop and another to Harold Benjamin. The HT Drinks side who performed so dismally in this year’s competition snapped up a coaching session for 6 with Mark Ramprakash for £1,000, and no doubt will return next year probably as a seeded side! But the result of the day had to be the sale of an India T20 shirt signed by Virat Kohli for £3,000, bought back by The Prideview Group as we sometimes do from time to time! For those of you with merchandise to donate, please note we are now accepting lots for our July ’17 auction!
Once again the raffle was a huge success, with over £2,000 raised from spectators and players on the day and several sponsors before it. The top prize was a framed England shirt signed by some of England and West Indies legends from the 90s which was one by new entrants InvestIn Education. Thanks to all those who donated prizes and sold raffle tickets, it certainly made a difference.
The PCC Final
Whilst the majority of players could finally put their feet up and tuck in to the delicious Spice Rack dinner, it was left to the hosts to attempt to knock Jade Pharmacy, 2015 Champions and still unbeaten in the PCC, off their perch! The Prideview team, in their 3rd PCC Final, had yet to go all the way, and after being hit for 6 off the first ball, it didn’t look like that would change. But a stellar fielding effort and lesson in teamwork put Prideview right in the game, with 3 wickets (two by run-out) pegging back a Jade Pharmacy side who hadn’t lost a wicket all day to just 27 runs after 5 overs. But whatever the Jade Pharmacy boys are taking, hopefully next year they will share it around, as they delivered a bowling masterclass which enabled them play with just 1 leg side fielder. It took until the penultimate ball for them to strangle a hard-fought Prideview chase in what will certainly go down as the greatest PCC final yet.
Jade Pharmacy beat Prideview by 1 run & became the first team to retain The Prideview Cricketers’ Cup!
Individual Rankings
Click here to see the tournament brochure once again, giving details of all the participants and sponsors. Thank you and see you all next year, and remember if you would like to get involved in any way get in touch!
