Castleford Cricket Club are the champions of Yorkshire, for the first time.
David Wainwright’s side won a thrilling Yorkshire Premier League play-off final at Emerald Headingley on Saturday, beating Woodlands by six runs.
The winners of the YPL North, defending a 242 target, survived a lower order revival from the Bradford League champions.
Woodlands had slipped to 159-7, only for Elliot Richardson’s 40 to help bring the game back into the balance.
He shared 64 for the eighth wicket with wicketkeeper Greg Finn (23), leaving the target at 19 off the last 17 balls.
But Castleford’s star performer of the day, their spinner Jack Young with 5-54 from 12 overs, removed both caught before Chesney Hughes comfortably defended 13 off the last over against last pair Kez Ahmed and Chris Brice.
Nine Woodlands batsmen all reached double figures in their 235-9, though nobody bettered Richardson’s 32-ball 40 from number nine.
And, having been well placed at 108-2 in the 27th over, they lost five wickets for 51 – three of them to Young.
Castleford had elected to bat upon winning the toss, and skipper Wainwright’s 29 from number four helped build their challenging total of 241-9.
Former Derbyshire all-rounder Hughes opened the batting and shared 103 for the first wicket with Liam Hyde.
Hughes top-scored with 61 off 57 balls on the ground where he scored 270 in a Championship game against Yorkshire in 2013, his best score of a first-class career which ended in 2017.
Hyde supported him with 43 before Brayden Clark also made 34 from number three.
Spinners Brice (4-59 from 15 overs) and Ahmed shared six wickets for Woodlands, who limited their opponents to only 52 runs in the last 10 overs of the innings to help set up the drama which later followed.
In lifting the White Rose Trophy, Castleford replace Sheriff Hutton Bridge as champions of the White Rose county after they won it in 2019. Unfortunately for them, Woodlands lost on that occasion as well.
