British Army retain T20 development Inter Services title with victories over RAF and Navy
The British Army have retained the T20 Inter Services development championships with a pair of victories over the RAF and Royal Navy at Tidworth.
An 86-run win against the Royal Navy and a seven-wicket victory over the Royal Air Force saw the Army impress with both bat and ball in their triumph.
The RAF also picked up a victory on the day by beating the Navy by 34 runs.
RAF v Navy
The day kicked off with a battle of the challengers and the Navy forced the RAF into bat after winning the toss, but a partnership between Jonny Davies and Ollie Rogoff at #2 and #3 helped the Air Force into a good start.
Rogoff was the top scorer with 40 runs and, further down the order, Tom Berzins raised the total with an unbeaten 35 runs.
The Navy's Robert Milligan was the standout bowler as he grabbed a hat-trick of wickets and orchestrated the key dismissals of Rogoff, Ben Goss and Callum Cload.
The RAF set the target of 156/6 and did well to limit the Navy batters to minimal runs.
Jed Foster, in the middle of the order, was the Navy's top hitter with 36 runs, but only three other players reached double figures, and the Navy's run rate was significantly lower than their opponents.
Berzins delivered four wickets for the RAF, and they bowled the Navy out with 34 runs and two balls to spare.
Army v Navy
On the back of the RAF defeat, the Navy picked themselves up and tried to tackle the challenge of the reigning champions but, after losing the toss and toiling in the Tidworth sun in the field, the task looked too difficult.
That's due to a solid Army batting innings with Rayshawn Lewis leading as an opener and getting a half-century on his way to 58 runs.
Charles Bevan (27), Charles Mitchell (27) and Jacob Clark (38) all put in decent scores as the Army's final total of 186 was reachable, but it would take an impressive Navy innings to get there.
That is not what followed.
An attacking bowling line-up of Roshorn John (three wickets), Sumith Surendran (two wickets) and Ben Black (two wickets) tore through the Navy's order, with nobody able to reach more than 19 runs with the bat.
The Navy's poor day ended as they were bowled all out for just 100 runs in the final over, and the Army had won by 86 runs.
Army v RAF
The final and title decider.
The first battle was won by the RAF as they won the toss and chose to bat, with Rogoff moving further up the order to be an opener with Davies but, this time, their partnership couldn't drive them to success as Rogoff was dismissed for just nine runs.
Davies was still in swinging mood, though, and achieved a half-century with three boundaries before falling to Jacob Clark's delivery for 52.
The rest of the order struggled with the Army sharing out the wickets, and the RAF ended their 20 overs at 112/7.
It was a total that the Army could chase down, with Charles Bevan (38 not out) and Vivek Naker (44) leading the way, and the Army smashed past their target with 7 wickets and 1.3 overs to spare.
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