Banbury took on Kimble 2nd’s at Horton View in the 2nd last round of the season chasing their 10th win of the season.
With the heavy rain of Friday, the wicket was a bit damp and looked like scoring could be hard. A further shower before the start of play reduced the match to 40 overs a side. Banbury won the toss and had no hesitation in putting Kimble into bat.
Banbury’s opening bowlers of Mark Pallett and Dan Bartlett produced another very tight opening spell, as Kimble moved slowly to 11-0 after 10 overs. The run rate increased somewhat as Mark Wright and Andy Jones came into the attack and Kimble moved to 50-0 off 19 overs. However, Mark Wright finally achieved the 1st breakthrough, trapping Tony Skeggs lbw for 27. However, runs were still coming for Kimble who moved to 87-1 off 27 overs. Jamie Mitchelmore achieved a needed breakthrough, having Ed Kent stumped for 15. From here, wickets started to fall regularly for Kimble, although Neil Mooney continued to keep the scoreboard ticking over at the other end. However, with Mitch showing his overall versatility by continuing to pick up wickets, Kimble finally finished on 142-8 off their 40 overs. Mitch was the pick of the bowlers finishing with 7-27 off 9 overs.
With Banbury’s innings now reduced to 39 overs, a positive start was required from Banbury, but this didn’t eventuate as Mitch was out in the 2nd over for a duck. Banbury found runs hard to come by and moved slowly to 27-1 off 10 overs. Adnan Ahmed was continuing his good form of late, and loosing one ball with a massive six over square leg. Anas Ahmed was next to go for 16, but Adnan continued to look in good touch sending another soaring six over mid wicket. Richard Lambden made 12 before being bowler playing across the line. Adnan then brought up his 50 with another six over mid-off, before going for one hit to many and being caught behind for 57. This left Banbury on 101-4 off 24 overs, still needing 42 runs of 15 overs. Sion Charlesworth-Jones and Andy Jones made some quick runs before Sion was out for 10 with Andy Jones following shortly after for 18 to leave Banbury on 126-6 off 30 overs. Kieran Scott and Dan Bartlett kept their cool and picked off the required runs, with Dan Bartlett hitting the winning runs with a four through mid-wicket, to get Banbury home in the 33rd over to win by 4 wickets.
The win kept Banbury in 1st place in the Division 8 table, 13 points ahead of Great Tew 3rds and 21 points ahead of Abingdon Vale 3rds with 1 match to go.