WELWYN Garden City wrote themselves into the Home Counties Premier League record books after thrashing Oxford by nine wickets, having bowled them out for only 40, a record low since the league’s creation eight years ago.
And the undoubted star of the show was WGC bowler Gavin Baker, who scalped an incredible seven wickets for just 10 runs.
Oxford, bottom of the league, lost a vital toss on what was a slow, wet, but true Digswell Park wicket and were asked to bat by captain Aaron Laraman, a decision that reaped immediate rewards.
Baker dismissed opener Daniel King with the first ball of the match, King leaving a ball that swung back in, flattening the stumps.
Things got no better for Oxford, who then lost their other opener Christopher Sandbach, run out to a direct hit from Baker, before a dramatic collapse ensued, that saw the score go from 4-2 to 28-8 in the space of only 14 overs.
Baker claimed every wicket with three victims clean bowled, two lbw and one caught behind by Simon Greenall off the outside edge.
With WGC in dreamland, and the innings almost over, Paul Barker was introduced at the other end, replacing Jamie Hewitt, and he quickly snared the final two wickets, Hendrik Van Dyk bowled, whilst number 11 Jonathan Allcock was caught by captain Laraman.
Barker finished with 8-4-7-2, but Baker stole the show with figures of 11-6-10-7, leaving the WGC batsmen only 41 runs to get in well over 100 overs.
After a brief stoppage for lunch, and the loss of Louis Champion stumped, opening batsman Hewitt and in-form Shaun Levy reached the target in only the ninth over.
WGC move onto Burnham this weekend, who, like Oxford find themselves at the wrong end of the table.
With the batsmen in form, and the bowlers now firing, WGC travel with the expectation that nothing other than a win will do.