HARWICH and Dovercourt Cricket Club hosted the annual Harwich and district primary schools tournament on Monday.

Blessed with great weather, eight schools entered which made for a great day's cricket.

The schools were split into two groups.

Group A consisted of All Saints Great Oakley, St Mary’s Ardleigh, Wix and Wrabness and St Georges Great Bromley.

Group B was made up of Chase Lane, Mayflower, Two Village and St Josephs.

As in previous years, teams have to consist of a minimum of eight players, with a mixture of boys and girls.

The group stages saw every school in the group play each other once.

Early on in Group A, St Georges and St Mary’s showed they were the ones to beat with both winning against All Saints and Wix and Wrabness.

The final group games saw St Georges beat St Mary’s to top the group.

St Mary’s finished second, with Wix and Wrabness beating All Saints to finish third.

Group B saw some tight games, with Chase Lane and Two Village managing to win their games against St Josephs and Mayflower.

This set up a really competitive game between the two sides to decide the group winner.

One of the best games of the tournament then ensued as Chase Lane squeezed past Two Village to top the group, with Two Village finishing second.

St Josephs beat Mayflower to finish third.

With the groups finished, each school moved through to the quarter-finals, with the winner of one group playing bottom in the other group and the runners-up playing third.

St Georges of Great Bromley continued their good run with victories over Mayflower and then St Mary’s, who had beaten St Josephs in the quarter-final, in the semi-final.

On the other side of the draw, Chase Lane, by beating All Saints Great Oakley, set up a rematch versus Two Village, who beat Wix and Wrabness.

This rematch did not disappoint as, again, it went down to the last over.

However, this time, Two Village got their revenge and made it to the final.

Credit to Chase Lane, who took part in two of the tournament's best games and played every game with a great team spirit.

The final saw some excellent fielding and bowling by St Georges Great Bromley, who restricted Two Village to a low score, which they duly beat to become deserved winners on the day.

Two Village performed very well to become runners-up and All Saints Great Oakley came away with the Best Sportsmanship Award.

Certificates, medals and trophies were presented by honoured guest, and newly-awarded honorary cricket club life member, Nigel Spencer MBE.

The cricket club would like to thank all the schools who turned up to make it a great day, teachers and helpers for giving up their time, the club’s own volunteers for helping umpire and score and finally Mr Spencer.