Bucks are champions!

 Bucks won their tenth Minor Counties Championship title - and their first for 22 years - when they beat Cheshire by a convincing 117 runs in the four-day final at Slough on Wednesday.
It was approriate that skipper Jason Harrison should take the winning catch, which led to joyous celebrations by the Bucks players and their supporters.
Harrison, who only took over the reins this season, has quickly moulded Bucks into a winning unit - and the success was achieved with locally-based  players.
Bucks won the final without their professional - ex Gloucestershire all-rounder Mark Hardinges - while Cheshire had two former Derbyshire players in Nathan Dumelow and Ben Spendlove.
But it was Bucks who dominated the match following the first-day centuries from young opener Fahim Qureshi and Harrison himself.
Qureshi, the young Slough left-hander, won the man-of- the-match award for his innings of 162 - a debut Championship century.
But he must have been pressed hard by Sam Cherry, who took nine wickets with his off-spin and hit a crucial half-century on the third afternoon. After the match, the 22-year-old, who plays for Dunstable, was awarded his Bucks County cap.
 Cheshire, the Western Division champions, were set 401 to win in the fourth innings. Resuming the final day at 96-2, they lost wickets steadily in the morning to Paul Sawyer and and Cherry; and when they stood at 172-7, seemed destined for a heavy defeat.
But Spendlove and Dave Berry added 97 in the hour after lunch to give Bucks some jitters, but once Spendlove was trapped lbw by Cherry for 91, Bucks were home and dry and they clinched the title in mid-aftern0on.
Cherry finished with 5-85 for match figures of 9-175, but he was given excellent support by Sawyer and Slough skipper Bobby Sher, who had a long stint on the final day.

 

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