Castletown won the Blincoe Cup on Sunday with an easy victory over rivals Cronkbourne at King William’s College.

Winning the toss, Jack Newbery decided to bat first and his openers Sam Callister (25) and Tom Kennaugh (35) gave Town the perfect platform, despite an impressive two overs up front from young leggie Ollie Wait.

However, when these two were dismissed the middle order failed to capitalise.

Cronkbourne skipper Nathan Knights put in a tidy two overs and took two important wickets with his off spinners and the Castletown innings fell away somewhat.

It was left to veteran Garreth Roome, having survived an early shout for caught behind, to see them to a respectable total.

Roome hit 30 and the innings closed with Castletown on what seemed to be a below-par 135-8 from their 16 overs.

Cronkbourne’s first innings relied on a steady 40 from Max Stokoe, but apart from Josh Mills (13) he had little support.

At 107-5 with two overs remaining they should really have gained a score close to Castletown’s, but their innings faltered to only 110-9, mainly due to a superb spell by another young leg spinner, Bradleigh Cregeen.

His 3-9 swung the game towards the southern team, and it was to remain firmly that way after the interval.

Cronkbourne had a hard job to produce a lead to defend but not many predicted the dramatic collapse that was to follow.

Two fantastic spells of bowling - 3-13 from Roome and 4-9 from Tom Burrows, combined with some excellent fielding and catching, saw Cronkbourne skittled for only 47.

This left a simple job for openers Callister and Kennaugh to knock off the 23 required and give Castletown their first success in the competition since 2001.

It was good to once again see such a lot of young talent on both sides, which must bode well for the future of Manx cricket.

The two teams will meet again this Sunday in the Tinker Cup final at Tromode.

Town will hope for a repeat of this result; Cronkbourne will be looking to bounce back and add a third trophy to their cabinet this season.

Ramsey beat town to clinch third spot

l The last Premiership match of the season took place at Ramsey Grammar School on Sunday.

In a very low-scoring game Castletown made only 98 all out, with Garreth Roome top scoring with 31.

Abdul Khan did most of the damage for Ramsey with 4-21. Ramsey only just scraped home by two wickets, and they had Shahid Rafique (18) and young Michael Webber (13 not out) to thank for this.

For Castletown there were two wickets each for Spencer Clarke, Richard Jackson, Tom Burrows and Tom Kennaugh, but they had left themselves too much to do.

The result means the northerners finish the season in third behind champions Cronkbourne and runners-up Peel and St John’s.