The Hundred: Wrenthorpe unbeaten at Yapham

Over the past decade, my coverage of grassroots women’s cricket has been, let’s be totally honest, poor. I have got to games, but infrequently and usually put to one side because of commercial pressures to cover county or international men’s and women’s cricket instead.

This season, I have resolved to clear each Sunday, and if possible, go to a women’s game to try and provide the best coverage I can.

I'm looking to cover a women's cricket game on Sunday…are there any teams/players that would like me to pop along to their ground?#Cricket @wywgcl

— Caught Light (@caughtlight) May 30, 2024

For those that don’t know, Yapham is a small village to the east of York and about two miles north-east of Pocklington.

As part of searching online for details of the village, I learned that it was originally called Lapun, and is another place that is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. The village was later referred to as Yaphome and this then became Yapham.

The Wikipedia entry for the village actually mentions the village cricket club, noting that it is almost 100 years old, one of the clubs to play through the war, and features a strong junior section, as well as men’s and ladies’ senior teams.

I always find it fascinating to find out a little about the village where teams play, especially if I’ve never been there before, as was the case for Yapham.

So, Sunday morning arrived and sporting my lovely lobster-style sunburn from the day before, I set off at around 8am to drive the 80-minute journey across from Harrogate, around the York ring road, and on to the ground.

As I neared the village, I headed down a few tight country lanes, warily watching for oncoming vehicles so that I could dive into one of the few passing places if needed. Reaching the ground, I pulled into the small car park that already had a car and van parked there.

The first game was due to start at 10:30 and I had managed to arrive in plenty of time, enough for me to go and explore.

As I rounded the impressive pavilion, I was greeted by Robyn Dennington, the Yapham captain and despite her being very busy preparing for the day, was kind enough to chat for a few minutes.

Letting Robyn get on with her work, I grabbed my camera and went for a walk around the perimeter, immediately noting what a wonderful set-up they had.

In the corner of the ground is what looks like a relatively new and impressive bowling lane, installed by one of Cricket Yorkshire’s partners, Total-Play.

The front of the pavilion is made up in part from large glass windows, and contains changing rooms, a seated bar area and scoring room with a lovely modern electronic scoreboard on the outside of the building.

The ground is surrounded by farmland, and the playing surface is quite large giving an overall impression of both seclusion and space, but with two active airstrips either side of the village I was unfortunately unable to pop the drone up to capture an aerial view.

Halfway around my boundary walk, I chatted to the groundsman who was marking out the perimeter, learning about how until very recently the outfield had been unplayable, but with the good weather over the past week, it had dried out reasonably well.

Looking at the grass, it certainly looked fantastic, and it is clear he has put plenty of work in to make it play so well.

Yapham were hosting Wrenthorpe CC and The University of York CC Women’s teams, in a series of games in the Yorkshire Women and Girl’s Cricket League’s The Hundred competition.

The first game was scheduled to see the hosts playing Wrenthorpe. As both teams took to the field, the sun was blazing away, and the heat was going to be a factor – I certainly didn’t envy the teams having to play in it!

The visitors won the toss and elected to bat first, with Millie Gray putting in a captain’s performance to top score with 42 runs from 53 deliveries, including three fours. Wrenthorpe put in an impressive first innings to reach a total of 95 for two in their allotted hundred balls.

A quick turnaround and Yapham started their response, with Robyn, like her counterpart, putting in a captain’s performance to top score with 29 not out.

Wrenthorpe had been impressive with the bat, but I was really surprised at how well they bowled, with Millie Gray and Jaimie-Lea Barradell probably being the pick of the bowlers – giving up only eight and nine runs respectively during their three overs (or should I say sets?).

---

With only a few balls remaining of the hundred, the visitors bowled Yapham out for 80 runs to take the points. The game had been in the balance all the way, and proved to be a great start to the day.

---

I retreated to the car to change over the cards in the cameras and to grab a drink of water, as it was getting hotter with little shade on offer around the boundary.

By now the local airfields were pretty busy, sending up a succession of planes towing gliders right over the cricket club, some seemingly so low that you could see and wave to the pilots.

The second game featured Wrenthorpe against the University of York CC Women, and started just after 1pm. By now the atmosphere was building with the Wrenthorpe supporters shouting encouragement, and York [the most vocal of the teams] geeing each other up!

Wrenthorpe batted first and posted an impressive total of 139 for York to chase, sending the ball to various parts of the boundary a number of times, to make sure they were scoring at considerably more than one a ball.

As I already said, Wrenthorpe were impressive with the bat, but excelled with the ball and York were about to find that out!

The York players were struggling to get runs in the face of the accurate bowling, losing wickets regularly and eventually succumbed in the thirteenth over, having reached just 56.

To be fair, the defeat didn’t put a dampener on The University of York players, who were still smiling and really enjoying the day.

---

For Wrenthorpe, it had been a really successful Sunday, winning both games and earning eight points.

---

Two games down, the third and final game was due to start at just after half past three, with Yapham playing the University of York.

I noted that Robyn was sitting out of this game, but any thoughts that this would weaken the home team were soon dispelled.

The Yapham bowlers were looking for wickets and they soon started to fall. The first two sets were low scoring, with the visitors restricted to hitting just three runs. Midway through the third set, Yapham got their first wicket.

The fourth set was low scoring, with the next wicket falling in the fifth set. Another fell in the sixth, then in the eighth, ninth, tenth and the final one in the eleventh set that saw the visitors all out for just 37.

Some teams would have let their heads fall at this point, but not the University team! They took to the field still with smiles on their faces and shouting encouragement to each other.

It took just 34 balls for Yapham to claim their victory and four points, reaching a total of 39 with a wonderful boundary by top scorer Aconley who ended unbeaten with 20 runs.

Wrenthorpe were the big winners on the day, ending up on 15 points and sitting fifth in the league just behind Sessay, Saxton and Doncaster Town. Equal on points with Sheffield Collegiate.

Whatever the purists think about The Hundred, that’s unimportant to me, as I believe that any variant of the game that brings more people into the sport…is a good thing.

This was a good day of cricket, played by three teams full of some very talented players and others with plenty of potential for the future. The enthusiasm that all the teams played with was infectious and a credit to their clubs.

I would like to thank the players and staff at Yapham for making me feel very welcome, and it is certainly a ground that I will be visiting again in the future.

📸 MATCH PHOTOS

Thanks to Mark for his article and photography from Yapham Cricket Club. Here are his other articles on Cricket Yorkshire.

To check out more of his photography, you can visit caughtlight.com or he’s @caughtlight on Twitter/X. There’s also the Caught Light Photography Facebook page.

I also highly recommend his blog called Leica Moments that include days out at grounds around North Yorkshire.