Jesus College, helped by an inspired performance by Charlie Hopkins, cruised to victory at Fenner’s on Friday to claim the cuppers final against a poor, if under strength, Christ’s side.

The format, as has been the case for the last few years was Twenty20 although only 30 overs were eventually played.

Given Christ’s bulldozing of Churchill in the semis and Jesus’ close defeat of Gonville and Caius, a closer tie was expected by all, though, by this display, Jesus were never likely to be stopped.

Fears that the forecast rain might halt proceedings were soon forgotten as Jesus took little more than a couple of hours to settle the tie.

Christ’s captain Harry Bardon may have felt that the overcast conditions would have spelt an early flurry of wickets when he chose to put Jesus into bat.

The early dismissal of Sam Grimshaw gave Christ’s an early glimmer of hope but one which was soon to be dashed.

It was the partnership of Frankie Brown and Charlie Hopkins that proved to be the destructive one with some 63 runs coming off just 44 balls. Brown looked set for his fifty and was left distinctly unimpressed with his dismissal which he suggested after had come off the pad and not the bat.

Hopkins was in particularly fine fettle, hitting a fine 62 with a number of sublime strokes including a giant six in the thirteenth over which cleared the ground by some distance. Ed Pope helped him along with a nifty 20 though he was rightly annoyed at the manner of his dismissal, his leg stump bowled by the impressive Stephen Harrison.

As Hopkins continued to add to his tally the bottom order came but its tail failed to wag, with the bottom four going for a combined total of just seven runs.

The damage had already been done however and by the time Hopkins had gone, the score was already impressive and Jesus ended on 177 for 9.

Having lost just the one wicket against Churchill in the semi final, Christ’s top order was left astounded by the early Jesus attack led by Hopkins who was hardly given time to rest after his earlier innings.

By the third over Christ’s were already two wickets down but even so they would not have been expecting what came next.

Hopkins, having dismissed Christ’s Number Three, Bardon, for just the one run, followed up with two more in succession and a fourth before the over was out.

The quadruple wicket maiden put to bed any slim hopes that Christ’s might have had of reaching the target.

Horns started to be sounded on the boundary (ready for the World Cup no doubt) to liven up the otherwise dreary atmosphere and it took little more than ten overs to wrap things up with Stephen Harrison, Christ’s best bowler, the only batsman to provide any resistance with a mature 18 not out.

Celebrations were, given the margin of victory, hardly melodramatic. This was a walk in the park and the treasurer of the University Cricket Club was on hand to point out that, as seen in the IPL, it is not in fact all that often that 20/20 matches involve exciting finishes.

Nevertheless it was a fantastic performance from Jesus.

The captain Duncan Allen, who led well from start to finish, was similarly full of praise for his side.

He said, "we were expecting a much closer tie to be honest, especially after the semi final against Caius. But the great depth of quality that we have in the team really helped us out today and although we would have liked to have hit a few more runs, our bowling was simply fantastic".

He was right, even if a few more stray balls might have made it a bit more of a spectacle. As it stood, Jesus ran out worthy winners and were the only team in the tie.