It all went wrong for CIYMS on Finals day at the European T10 Championships in La Manga yesterday as they lost both games to crash out before the climax.

After 10 wins in a row and finishing top of the round-robin group, confidence was high in the Belmont side when they faced French champions Dreux in the first match of the day, with the winners going straight through to the Final.

The All-Ireland champions had won the round-robin match by 11 runs and after scoring 125 for six — Jason van der Merwe top scoring with 38 from 18 balls — they were favourites for victory when they restricted Dreux to 71 for three after six overs.

Jason van der Merwe with the MVP award: Pic: Diane Oros, European Cricket Twitter

But, in an astonishing finale, the French scored 18 off the seventh over, 23 off the eighth and a further 14 off the ninth to leave them needing just two off the final over. Despite Allen Coulter’s heroics earlier in the week, the second ball went to the boundary and CI were condemned to the second Semi-Final against Hornchurch who had won the third-place play-off.

It was another team they had beaten in the round-robin but again the tables were turned in spectacular fashion.

Van der Merwe was again top scorer with 32 but CI would still have been disappointed to total only 112 for five, the first four batsmen all dismissed on their 13th delivery.

This time it wasn’t a close finish with new skipper John Matchett giving himself the first over and with the help of a no ball seeing it disappear for 23.

Matchett redeemed himself with a direct hit in the third over to make it two wickets in two balls but even dependable Jacob Mulder could not stop the big-hitting Englishmen and when his second over went for 19, Hornchurch had won with two overs to spare.

There was the biggest individual honour for van der Merwe, however, He received the trophy for the tournament's MVP, after scoring 641 runs at an average of 58 and a strike rate of 232.

The English side were well beaten in the final, however, making only 69 for eight in reply to Druex's 131 for five.