WOKINGHAM secured their fourth victory of the campaign with a four wicket timed win against Amersham as they moved up to sixth in the tightly contested division.
The Oaks won the toss and elected to field first on what was a scorching day at Wokingham Cricket Club.
Amersham lost two quick wickets in their innings as Wokingham’s opening bowler Jacob Clark removed Alex Cole (10) for an early breakthrough before Stanley Walsh (1) followed with the score at 12-2.
The visitors got their innings back on track as the slow scoring Acheen Rajapakska batted sensibly to help stem the flow of early wickets. But Wokingham eventually gained the wicket of Rajapakska (29) as Iain Muirden took another catch to give Simon Myles his first wicket of the day.
Stuart Parsons bowled out.
Wokingham threatened to keep Amersham to a modest total, however with captain Andrew Viney at the crease, the visitors were able to tally a decent total despite the skipper not having a consistent partner for the majority of his innings.
Max Uttley enjoyed a clinical spell with the ball as he belittled the middle to tail end of the Amersham order to take four wickets, two of which caught in the field by James Bird.
With Amersham on 214, Wokingham finally dismissed Viney just shy of completing a century as he fell on 98 in what was an exceptional innings. Amersham recorded only two more runs before their innings was completed to set Wokingham a chase of 216 to win the match.
Captain Stuart Parsons fell for just six runs as Amersham made a promising start to their bowling with the score at 7-1. But his opening partner Archie Carter batted a fine innings as he hit nine fours on his way to tallying 47 before he lost his wicket, after Danny Housego was removed for eight, to leave Wokingham on 74-3.
Stuart Parsons bowled out.
Simon Myles was felled after scoring 22 runs with the Oaks just short of reaching the century mark with four wickets down. With wicket keeper Michael Bates at the middle, Wokingham soared towards the target set by Amersham as he knocked eight fours and scored a very valuable 54 runs for his side.
James Bird continued the consistent scoring of the hosts and Wokingham were at 213-6 by the time he was dismissed having contributed a healthy innings of 44 runs. The Oaks wrapped up victory with four wickets to spare, with Ben Myles (20) and Jacob Clark (3) at the crease having batted 49.4 overs to surpass the first innings total set by Amersham.
Wokingham batting: Parsons 6, Carter 47, Housego 8, S Myles 22, Bates 54, Bird 44, B Myles 20no, Clark 3, Muirden dnb, Uttley dnb, Dewick dnb.
Wokingham bowling: Clark 2-37, Muirden 0-46, S Myles 2-31, Dewick 0-36, Uttley 4-40, Bird 1-24.
