Sussex retain British Blind Sport Cup

Sussex retained the British Blind Sport Heindrich Swanapoel Memorial Cup by beating London Metro by 8 wickets at the County Ground in Beckenham on Saturday.

Sussex skipper Dan Field won the toss and invited Metro to bat. Metro were bowled out in 22.4 of their allotted 30 overs for 125.

Despite losing Australian opener Nick Ebbeck to a fine catch by Alex Towers off the bowling of Joe Harrison in the first over, Metro made a rapid start reaching 69-2 after 7 overs mainly from the bat of former England captain Matt Dean who scored 51 off 29 balls including ten 4s until totally blind bowler Dave Daniels dismissed him.

After that wickets fell at regular intervals with Dan Field and Alex Towers drying up the runs as 4 wickets went down for 5 runs in 5 overs. Daniels and Ian Morris each took a catch which emphasised how much Sussex’s success this year has been due to these two totally blind players.

A seventh wicket stand of 38 between Mark Russell and Hassan Khan temporarily halted the decline but at the interval Sussex would have fancied their chances of chasing a target of 126.

Harrison and Daniels opened for Sussex. Daniels was caught by former Sussex and England player Rob Comber off the bowling of Metro skipper Rory Field. Harrison was caught behind by former Sussex skipper Si Ledwith which brought Dan Field and Andy Dalby-Welsh together at 44-2. By carefully seeing off Comber who bowled his six overs for 16 runs and Rory Field who had figures of 5-1-19-1 they took Sussex to a comfortable victory. Dalby-Welsh hit four 4s in an unbeaten 29.

Dan Field was Partially Sighted Man of the Match with a catch, a run out ,figures of 4.4-0-13-4 and a score of 45 not out. Dave Daniels was Totally Blind Man of the Match with a catch and the wicket of Matt Dean.

These two players won the same awards at the 2017 final when Sussex defeated Warwickshire. In both finals Sussex were the underdogs meeting teams who were above them in the National League.

After the awarding of the Cup to Sussex, the 2018 National League trophy was presented to Metro.