Sam Cheshire was the star of the show again on Saturday with his third hundred of the season, as Banbury cruised past Aston Rowant.
With an changed bowling attack, Banbury won the toss and elected to field. Megson (7-3-20-1) once again the senior bowler, and produced another fine spell of bowling, and was well backed up by Adnan Iqbal (7-0-23-1) making his 2nd team debut. Adnan produced the first chance, but a touch catch at slip was put down.
Megson final removed Walker for 0 in the 5th over, and Adnan followed suit in the 10th claiming his first Division 2 wicket by removing Lewis for 7.
Ross Freeman and former left arm spinner Paul Hill were introduced into the attack, and bowled with great control. In fact Hill’s first 5 overs resulted in 2 wickets for 1 run (an edge to 3rd man).
Wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals, and with some exceptional fielding and catching (a one handed diving catch at short extra by C Smith in particular) Rowant were struggling to impose themselves on the game.
Hill completed a fine spell of 19-5-53-4 by removing there last man to bowl Rowant out for 163. Ross Freeman bowled well and finished with 11-2-37-2. Chris Smith also managed to burgle a couple of wickets 8-1-18-2 as he was introduced to help speed up the over rate.
Banbury’s reply started in familiar style, with Cheshire scoring freely (33 in his first 16 balls), and Sabin looking to be solid. Scoring only slowed when Rowant introduced Foster into the attack, who took the pace off the ball. (Some were that slow it is debatable if the bails would of been removed if the ball hit the stump!)
Cheshire was first to pass 50, reaching it in 51 balls. Sabin’s 50 took slightly longer 107 balls.
With the rain clouds building in the background, the batsmen decided to increase the rate, and 38 came off the next 4.4overs. Cheshire finished the match by hitting the last ball for 4, to finish the innings unbeaten on 100no. Sabin 54 no.
Banbury 25 Aston Rowant 2