Adel's groundsman was apologetic before the Black Sheep Yorkshire Champions' Trophy final between Pudsey Congs and Harrogate at Adel Cricket Club.

Congs wicketkeeper Gary Brook said: "He came into our changing room and said 'The wicket is a bit wetter than I would have wanted but it usually gets better in the second half, and I have told the opposition the same'."

Harrogate won the toss, put Congs in and soon they were in dire straits at five runs for three wickets.

The ball was seaming and leaping, and batsmen had to be prepared to take a few blows to the ribs and graft in order to get runs.

Paul Carroll, Andy Bethel and Matthew Doidge were swiftly back in the tent and Barbar Butt and Naveed Rana ul-Hassan started to repair the damage.

On a day when close fielders always had to have their wits about them because the ball was popping up off the bat, as did the umpires because of mass appeals, the fourth-wicket pair carried the score to 35 before Butt edged off-spinner Chris Guest to first slip.

Brook then came on to the scene, and had partnerships with Rana (28) and Andy Bairstow (29), who carried on the good work of the previous day with another knock of character.

This, allied to Glen Roberts' 19, at least enabled Congs to set a challenging total of 167 for seven in the face of hostility - both with the ball and without it - from former Bradford & Bingley paceman Dave Pennett, and the gentler Chris Kippax and Mike Stanford.

There were so many spectators examining the wicket during the tea interval that it could have been a Test match at Headingley or a baggage reclaim at Manchester Airport

Harrogate's John Inglis and Alexis Twigg are a notable opening partnership and it needed a misjudgement on their part to remove them, Doidge running out Inglis who was chasing a second with the score on 27.

Stanford didn't last long, falling to Mark Bray, but the game seemed to be slipping away from Congs when overseas player Khalid Hussain

Butt employed a selective hitting policy.

He added 42 with Twigg before Bray dismissed him, and then the match took another twist, the bearded Nijad Khan trapping Ollie Hutton and Ryan Bradshaw lbw in successive balls to make it 75 for six.

Advantage Congs, but Harrogate still had hope because striding to the wicket was former Leicestershire player Peter Hepworth. His sensible contribution and Twigg's diligence seemed to be taking Harrogate to victory before an inspired bowling change by Doidge started the scales tilting again.

Butt's innocuous-looking delivery bowled Hepworth for 22, and man-of-the-match Twigg was then run out for 53, Doidge again proving what a fine fielder he is.

Pennett mishooked Rana to give Butt a simple catch, and the contest was very much in the balance with Harrogate, at 154 for eight, needing 14 off the last two overs.

But the match was over three balls later, Matt Cousens making it all seem horribly simple with clean hits for six (on to the tennis courts), four and four (both towards the pavilion) off Neil Gill.

Brook said: "A 50 on that wicket was worth 100 elsewhere, but Harrogate probably played the better cricket, even though we were two balls away from winning it. We were in with a chance when they needed 14 off 12 balls with two wickets left."

Harrogate skipper Inglis said: "It was never a 200 wicket. We bounced the ball on it before the start and it just sunk.

"If we had taken our catches they could have been 60 for six.

"But Gary Brook batted really well to make 48 not out and Alexis deserved his man-of-the-match award for his fantastic knock of 53, but Matt Cousens' batting at the end was awesome.

"We knew we didn't want to get too many off the last over which would have been bowled by Rana."

As Harrogate also beat Congs last year off the last ball of a rain-reduced 25-overs-a-side contest in the National Knockout Cup and also scuppered their chances of equalling Pudsey St Lawrence's feat of winning the Black Sheep title three years in a row (1986-88), Congs doubtless cannot wait for the next time they square up.