Victory seals promotion for Prestbury

PRESTBURY’S bid for promotion came down to the last match of the season, when they needed eight points against bottom team Bunbury.

Prestbury won the toss and decided to bat. Aqeel Ahmed and Steve Oldfield didn’t have the greatest start as Ahmed was caught for five, so Guri Singh came in to join Oldfield and they took the score to 30 before he was out for seven.

Tom Livesley (0) and Oldfield (12) soon followed and 34-4 was not an ideal start.

New batsmen Stuart Burnell and Tremayne Ryder went about building a partnership and got the score to 76 when Ryder was caught for 22.

Kavin Shanmugam came to the wicket but after getting the score to 92, Prestbury had a collapse of three wickets.

Burnel was out for a good 27 off 66 balls, but the dismissals of Ben Oakes (0) and Shanmugam (11) meant Prestbury were 92-8.

Paul Butterworth and Sam Gilding took them past the 100 mark but the innings closed on a below par total of 110.

After a quick change round, Singh dismissed Farringdon (0) and it was 10-2 when Oakes took a catch of the bowling of Butterworth.

Bunbury reached 32 when Butterworth stuck again with Swinbank out lbw.

At 46, Kirkland had Wantling (1) brilliantly caught by Shanmugam but Nick Ball was holding the innings together and he went on to claim his 50 and finished 63 not out.

Singh took two wickets in his eight overs for a fantastic victory by eight runs and promotion to division one.

The seconds won their last game of the season and finished a credible fourth.