Oxfordshire brought their season to an end in the Unicorn Minor Counties Championship on Tuesday with a narrow, 3-wicket defeat at the hands of an impressive Cheshire side, on a good batting track at Thame.
The highlights of the game were two centuries in Cheshire’s first innings of 338 on Sunday (R. Sehmi 145, S.Perry 103), a century for Thame’s very own Ollie Burland (133), which formed the backbone of Oxfordshire’s second innings, hostile pace bowling from Cheshire’s Michael Finan (6 wickets in the match) and 7 wickets for Gareth Andrew on the home side.
This was the first time that Thame had played host to Oxfordshire for over 20 years. There was a substantial crowd at Church Meadow on Sunday, including visitors from as far afield as Kent and Surrey and the club’s ground, clubhouse and facilities came in for universal praise over the course of the 3 days.
Congratulations to Ollie Burland and Cal Russell (not forgetting 12th man Dan Patey of course) for their contribution to an Oxfordshire recovery that came so close to rescuing the result.
Thame Town CC would like to thank all the people of the town and the surrounding area who came out to support, to the volunteers who helped stage the match and finally to Hamnett Hayward for their help with the publicity. We hope to be able to welcome back the Oxfordshire team to our club next season!
