HOLDERS Banbury retained the Bernard Tollett Oxfordshire Cup with an emphatic nine-wicket win over Thame Town in the final at Kidlington yesterday.
The victory in Oxon’s version of Twenty20 cricket provided skipper Richard Kaufman with a perfect end to his two-year reign.
He is stepping down next season as he is going to be away at Cardiff University doing a Post Graduate Certificate of Education.
And chasing Thame’s 134-5, Kaufman fittingly hit an unbeaten 47 to steer Banbury to 137-1 with 2.2 overs to spare.
Chris Smith was unbeaten at the finish on 41 after Craig Haupt had got Banbury off to a flying start with 39.
Earlier, Calum Taylor had picked up 2-31 in the Thame innings which featured useful contributions from Luke Merry, Pratik Mehta and Manoj Parmar.
Taylor had played the starring role in Banbury’s four-wicket semi-final win over Kidlington earlier in the day.
He took 4-26 as Kidlington were held to 118-9, Shailesh Prabhu top-scoring with 33.
And then he smashed 45 as Banbury got home at 122-6 with three balls to spare.
Haupt was also in good form with 42, while Mark Strong was the pick of the Kidlington attack with 3-21.
In the other semi-final, Thame sprang a surprise by brushing aside Oxford by nine wickets.
Oxford were bowled out for 112 off the last ball of their 20 overs, with the wickets shared around.
Thame then shrugged off the early loss of Parmar, strolling to 113-1 with 2.3 overs to spare.
Mehta blasted an unbeaten 60, and Chris Wynd was 36 not out.