Aylesbury cricket team wins national tournament to set up Cape Town date

A cricket team from Aylesbury is set to represent England in an international cricket tournament taking place in South Africa.

The Aylesbury Outlawz were the 2022 Last Man Stands Cricket champions winning a regional and national competition.

Last Man Stands is an increasingly popular format of cricket involving eight players per team.

It represents an even quicker paced version of the game than Twenty20.

Between December 9 and 17 the World Championships will pit 32 of the best cricket teams against one another with the Aylesbury Outlawz among those competing for the global crown.

The draw for the competition has not been made yet, but the Aylesbury athletes can expect to face cricketers from the likes of India and Australia.

Games will be live-streamed to a global audience from the tournament’s official website.

To qualify for the showcase the Aylesbury team had to win six successive games at a regional tournament and repeat the trick at a national meet.

Lasting for just two hours with fewer players per team, the format is seen as a batter’s game which encourages scoring. Batsmen can score bonus points at the end of overs if they clear the boundaries.

Before going to South Africa, the Aylesbury team will be defending their number one national ranking in regional competition, and potentially at a national level again.

The Aylesbury Outlawz have been playing this new form of cricket, which was founded in 2005, for over two years. But the team have been playing cricket together in more traditional formats for longer under the same name.

Mark Ludlow, who plays on the team, said: “We’ve been together for a while now, for a number of years. We’ve got a good balance of players who can fulfill different roles. People step up at different times. It’s not a one-man team. I think we’ve got a very good team ethic and a good skill base in our team where we can cover a lot of areas.

When asked about the appeal of this new version of the sport, he added: “It’s more exciting, it’s a bit like T20 really. There’s less fielders, it’s more of a batter’s game, where you just whack it really.”