Torquay celebrating their Devon final win over Exmouth

TORQUAY face a Sunday morning commute to London to play Penzance in the NatWest ECB Clubs T20 Cup.

Torquay went out of the competition at the regional final stage when Penzance thrashed them by 141 runs at Shapwick and Polden.

ECB officials looked into the names on the Penzance team sheet and discovered James Sykes shouldn’t have been there.

Sykes played four List A games for Leicestershire earlier in the season, which counted him out of the clubs competition.  

Penzance pointed out they had checked Sykes’ eligibility with competition managers and were under the impression he could play.

ECB investigated further, decided Penzance had acted in good faith and ordered a replay at Torquay last Sunday.

That should have been that. But it wasn’t. Torquay only learned on Wednesday last week they were hosting a replay – and that was too short-notice to get a team organised for a national cup game.

Torquay approached ECB who agreed to postpone the replay until this Sunday – and emails went out to Penzance telling them of the change.

There was just one problem: no one at Penzance saw the email before the team left for Torquay.

Penzance arrived at the Recreation Ground to discover no pitch prepared and no opposition to play.

The Clubs T20 Cup runs to a tight schedule with a final at Derbyshire in early September.

The winners of the Torquay-versus-Penzance game are due to play Wimbledon away in the national quarter-final.

When Wimbledon pointed out a problem their end to ECB, another change was ordered by Lord’s.

“Wimbledon were due to host the quarter-final  this Sunday and as they already have the arrangements sorted wanted to stick to that,” said Torquay skipper Justin Yau,

“ECB e-mailed last Friday to say we were to play Penzance this Sunday at Wimbledon.

“The winners will stay on to play Wimbledon in the afternoon.”

Torquay are in the same half of the draw as C&R Hawks CC and Wanstead, one of whom will be waiting for them if they make it to finals day in Derby on September 11.