Bicester 4s travelled over to Stratfield Brake on a cloudy, but warm, Saturday afternoon. With promotion in sight for Kidlington 2s, and a few more wins required to wrap up the division title, the hunger for more success had set in.

Bicester's captain, Sathya, won the toss and elected to field first with the cloud cover and green top wicket looking to be favorable for a bowl. Kidlington's opening duo, a now experienced partnership, of Imran Younis and Hambridge (C) took to the crease. In typical fashion, Hambridge started to pile on the runs in the opening overs, taking Bicester's opening bowler for 10 runs an over off his first 3 overs. Sathya opening up the other end, bowled tighter lines but the batting pair continued to push the singles and twos and brought up the 50 partnership early on.

A bowling change saw Tahir Khan and Sonny Uppal come on for Bicester and this haltered the run rate. Tahir bowled superb lines with some good pace whilst Sonny bowled mystery spin, offering turn and bounce from the pavilion end. The partnership was eventually broken as Imran fell for 9 (30) to a smart caught and bowled by Sonny. Returning from injury, Francis Young joined Hambridge in the middle and looked to play the anchor role for Hambridge and rotated the strike well. Tahir bagged himself a wicket and trapped Young in front of the stumps LBW. Neil then joined Hambridge at the crease, who then brought up his second successive 50 shortly after. Neil began to put pressure back onto Bicester and, after Tahir had been taken off, launched some lovely cover drives to the boundary. Sonny, continuing to find purchase in the pitch, then managed to bag the wickets of Neil, Hambridge (who had rode his luck to get to 75 (61) after being dropped on a few occasions) and Jack Launchbury in quick succession. Sonny finished his spell with figures of 4/36 off 9 overs.

A familiar middle order partnership of A Behal and M Tippett put on an all important 80-run partnership before both falling to the returning Sathya. Tipper brought up his 50 in style, finishing on 51 (41) and Behal 31 (53). Some quickfire runs at the death for Kidlington as C Graham launched the only 6 of the match over extra cover.

242 runs scored after their 45 overs, a big chase required for Bicester.

Kidlington opted for a Launchbury attack from the off, with father, Tony Launchbury, and son, Jack Launchbury, bowling the opening 15 overs. Jack taking two wickets early on, plus a run out, and Tony adding another, with a smart catch from Francis. A fine knock from Bicester's opener A Azad as he hit 73 (105) and also Simon Smith hit a classy half century finishing on an unbeaten 61* (101). Tippett bagged himself another 2 wickets later on, bringing up his 50th and 51st wicket for the season. Incredible stuff. Some great bowling from Hambridge and Arnav reduced the run rate in the middle overs and the target and required run rate continued to run away from Bicester. Tippett and Jed Launchbury bowled the final overs and Bicester could only push singles as the required run rate rose to 10 then 12 an over. Bicester finished 57 runs short of the target and Kidlington wrapped up the maximum points.

With 3 games to go, 1 more win will secure promotion and 2 wins to secure the title, as long as Cropredy and Deddington don't drop any more points. Fingers crossed for the 2s!