IT'S official - Malvern College boast the best Under 15's cricket team in the country after they defeated Whitgift School from Surrey in the final of the Taverners Trophy for Colts at Trent Bridge on Wednesday, July 12.

More than 1,400 schools enter this competition, the largest event in cricket, and Malvern College as Worcestershire champions had to battle their way through six rounds (all nail-biting finishes) to earn the right to play Whitgift at the famous old test match ground.

The final was yet another pulsating match, with fortune ebbing and flowing throughout the day, before Malvern forged as they have been all season in the white hot atmosphere of close finishes, eventually prevailed by two wickets with two balls remaining.

Malvern won the toss and, no doubt mindful that a few nervous butterflies are more easily settled when taking the field as a team, asked Whitgift to bat first. Their opponents, who had not lost a match since they were Under 11, fairly bristle with intent but from the outset, the pitch seemed a little unpredictable and Malvern's battery of seamers started to make some inroads by way of steady and accurate bowling.

Pick of the crop were Gifford (3-29) and Raymond (2-28) but the most miserly was Jonathan Baker, bustling in from the Sobers Stand end, who bowled seven overs for only 12 runs. Were it not for a brave and resourceful innings of 50no from Clarke, the Whitgift total off their allotted 40 overs would have been paltry indeed. As it was, a score of 149-7 meant that the odds were pretty evenly stacked.

Malvern started badly. Two wickets fell almost immediately and when Will Murtagh strode out to join Craig Wood with the score at 9-2, one sensed that this was going to be the crucial period of play.

Slowly but surely, in the face of some aggressive bowling, and ever mindful of the vagaries of the pitch, they steadied the ship and moved purposefully to calmer waters. Their partnership of 74 took Malvern to the brink of victory.

But nothing has ever been that simple this season with this team. Both lost their wickets at the wrong time (Wood for 49 and Murtagh for 38) and as the overs started to run out, risks had to be taken and wickets tumbled. There were some desperate shots and crazy runs an a fair-sized crowd went alternately though agony and ecstasy (depending on which side you supported) as the final, hectic moments were played out.

With two balls left and only two wickets remaining, the winning run was scrambled and Malvern were home.

On this occasion, there was no real hero as in earlier rounds, just 11 of them, jubilant at their feat of proving themselves the best in the land.

Whitgift were downcast and Malvern in raptures but as Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the BBC radio commentator and Times cricket correspondent, said when he presented the handsome trophy to the winning captain, Will Gifford: "It is a shame that any side had to lose after a game like that".