With captain Christian Henk broken down on the Headington roundabout, Alan Tilley was sent out to toss the coin. He duly called correctly, and elected to bat in glorious sunshine on a firm track.

However, Warborough have a recent reputation for not travelling well, having been bowled out for 41 at Stonor and reduced to eight for five at Crowmarsh in their previous two away games; and when they lost the core of their batting in subsiding to 41 for three inside twelve overs, with Henk still en route to a garage in Oxford, another ignominious defeat was on the cards.

Survival became the order of the day, and the scoreboard ground to a halt as Warborough crawled to 71 for four in the 34th over. Then, espying a fully-clad Henk now ready to enter the fray, Tilley sacrificed himself in the team cause.

Henk's impact was immediate and decisive. With only 45 minutes remaining before the scheduled tea interval, he set about the hitherto-miserly Runkell and Beardall with some élan, and race to 42 from just 34 deliveries before being freakishly dismissed when he nudged the ball onto his stumps whilst attempting to stop it rolling back into them via his pads.

There was still time for Simon Tiedeman to block out the final four deliveries before the tea interval, whereupon Warborough declared their innings closed at 160 for seven.

Turville employed a far more positive approach to their response, and had raced along to 91 from just 16 overs when the last hour started. However, by this time, they had also lost six wickets to a combination of controlled out-swing at a hostile pace from Tom Buckner, and an excellent two-handed diving catch at point by Dave Perry.

As Buckner began to tire, the seventh wicket partnership made steady progress towards the target - and with only 70 runs required from the final twenty overs there was little "scoreboard pressure" to be applied.

With three-and-a-half overs remaining, and ten runs required, the game turned on a fine piece of fielding by Buckner, whose pick-up and throw from the deep hit the base of the stumps to run out Simon by a couple of feet. White then walked straight across his stumps to his first delivery, and was bowled round his legs. Rejuvenated by his fielding exploits, Buckner summoned up one final over of searing pace to account for Girdler, and, with only the inexperienced Mills for company, Runkel holed out to Henk at mid-on with six deliveries to go.

Buckner had bowled all but two of the overs delivered from the north end, and finished with figures of six for 47, with every one of his victims either bowled or dismissed leg-before wicket.