SEDBERGH School, including seven Cumbrian boys, has claimed the Under 18s National T20 championship title – beating the best school cricket teams in the country.

More than 200 schools entered the competition and Sedbergh reached finals day at Arundel, Sussex, after being crowned T20 North of England champions.

Included in their team on finals day were Kendal brothers Chris and James Park-Johnson.

In the semi-final against Merchant Taylor’s, from London, captain Chris Sanders won the toss and elected to bat first.

Max Silvester, who smashed 44 off 18 balls, gave Sedbergh a blistering start and it was Sanders himself who took the game away from the opposition by blasting 95 off just 44 balls – including nine sixes.

In the final, Sedbergh faced old rivals Millfield and again won the toss and batted first. After an uncharacteristically slow start Silvester started to find the middle of the bat – and blasted 111 of 61 balls, hitting 10 huge sixes in the process. His final 68 runs off just 22 balls.

This enabled Sedbergh to pass 200 for the second time in the day, reaching 201-5.

Millfield were forced to go hard from the start and when James Park-Johnson picked up two wickets in the first over and Sam Barrett picked up a third in the next, Sedbergh were almost home and hosed.

Park-Johnson finished with impressive figures of 4-29 and Kyme Tahirkheli added three more wickets to his season’s haul.

Martin Speight, cricket professional at Sedbergh, said: “The boys put in two near faultless displays and the thing that amazed everyone was the power that we hit the ball with and the spirit of the team in the field.”