SWASHBUCKLING strokes belied the nerves Woodhouse Grange batsman Andrew Bilton was feeling as he helped steer his side to Davidstow Village Cup glory at Lord's.

The Sutton-on-Derwent side's opener hit a fabulous 70 from 69 balls, with ten fours and two sixes, as the York & District Senior League premier division champions chased down 114 with nearly 17 overs to spare to beat Great and Little Tew in the final at the home of English cricket.

It took Bilton and fellow opener Nick Hadfield (43 not out) just 77 minutes to surpass the Oxfordshire outfit's paltry total as Grange won village cricket's most prestigious competition for the third time.

But far from basking in his own willow-wielding heroics, Bilton paid tribute to the bowlers and fielders who set up those match-winning exploits with a devastating spell of bowling.

Great and Little Tew were reduced from 44-1 to 60-5 and wickets continued to tumble throughout their innings, leading Bilton to state: "It wasn't really about me and Nick. It was about the bowling effort and the team effort in the first half. Chasing 114 took a lot of the pressure off.

"We create a lot of pressure - through dot balls - and that's how we get wickets, rather than looking for magic deliveries. We are always looking to bowl dots at people."

Bilton admitted it took a while to find his feet at the famous crease in St John's Wood but, once he did, the 25-year-old, along with Hadfield, punished any bowling that was short of a length or wide.

On the achievement of reaching a half-century at Lord's, he added: "It hasn't really sunk in yet. I don't know about Nick but I was pretty nervous. I didn't really feel that I was moving my feet but the more the runs came, and we kept ticking them off, the easier its got.

"It's a dream come true - really nice."

And, along with a number of his teammates, Bilton explained how the pain of defeat two years ago to Reed in the final had driven the Woodhouse Grange team on to their dominant display.

He said: "A lot was spoken about two years ago and how we really underperformed and underachieved. (Great and Little Tew) were probably a better side than we played two years ago. We were really poor.

"Sometimes finals are like that - one team can really thrive under the pressure and, sometimes, it is just a bit much. We felt like that two years ago.

"We really managed to strangle them and keep them to just a trickle of runs."