A LIVE appearance on SKY TV is one match away for Kendal in their bid to reach Finals Day of the Barbados Cockspur Cup ECB T20 competition.

Chris Miller's side, winners of the NPL’s Jamie Heywood Twenty20 Cup, produced a magnificent display to beat both New Brighton and hosts Middleton in the Regional Semi-Final.

Kendal will now host Hyde CC on Sunday, August 28 at Shap Road with the winners qualifying for the Twenty20 Finals Day on Monday, September 19 to be held at Chelmsford, the county ground of Essex CCC.

In additon to the live TV coverage, the first prize ins a trip for the team to Barbados.

First-up on Sunday, Middleton played New Brighton and the hosts posted 113 runs as New Brighton reached their target with 3.2 overs to spare.

Next Kendal faced New Brighton and skipper Chris Miller won the toss and elected to bat, but Kendal found runs hard to come by on the damp wicket and could only muster 91-9 from their 20 overs.

The New Brighton players and supporters looked confident but Kendal plugged away at the batsmen with some great catches and intelligent cup bowling.

It boiled down to a last-over finish with the last New Brighton batsman departing to leave Kendal with a three-run win.

In the round-robin format it was now possible that if Middleton beat Kendal then all three teams would have won one and lost one, meaning the winners would be decided on superior overall run-rate.

Kendal knew that because they had the worst run-rate of the three, nothing short of outright victory would suffice.

Against Middleton, Kendal chose to bat on Miller winning another toss and Gary Baker and Jono Miles took advantage of the six-over power play with some big hitting to put on 33 after four overs.

Although the scoring-rate slowed, Kendal eventually made 111-7, but again the Shap Road side’s bowlers and fielders were called upon to do the business and responded magnificently with Jack White and Chris Miller each claiming four wickets to shoot out the host for just 70 runs.

Hyde, Kendal’s opponents in the Regonal Final won the West-Midlands Area Final by beating Kendal's old adversaries Old Hill from the Birmingham League in the closest possible finish.

In reply to Hyde’s 183-7, Old Hill matched the score exactly and with both teams level on runs scored and wickets lost it went on count-back - whoever had the best score after five overs, and Hyde were duly elected the winners.