Tipton St John welcomed Plymouth Civil Service and Roborough on the hottest day of the year so far.

With captain and vice captain’s missing it was left to Tipton’s octogenarian chairman, David O’Higgins, to take charge of the game.

He won the toss and elected to bowl first utilising the 145 years of experience of himself and Phil Wright.

Phil Wright struck first in the sixth over bowling Jarrad Harvey for one to claim his 800th wickets for Tipton in his 650th match.

In the next over O’Higgins produced a lovely flighted ball that had Steve Ford in a right pickle. He had advanced down the wicket, but missed the ball. As he was in the process of diving face down with bat extended trying to regain his ground, he was just able to see the ball slowly hit the stumps!

Mark Channon with 1-10 and Steve Shaw 3-15 both off 8 overs kept the run rate down and, despite 42 from opener Dan Ellard, Plymouth Civil Service were restricted to 106-6 off their allotted overs.

Phil Tolley and Alex Tubbs opened for Tipton. Ellard looked quite nippy despite his 38 over batting innings and accounted for Tubbs when caught 12. Alan Smith surprised Tolley and bowled him for 41 off 41 balls, aided by a pair of sixes just before his demise.

Dave Thayre and Steve Shaw took Tipton close to their target. Shaw scored 28 off 38 balls and in doing so reached 11,000 runs for the club.

His wicket was quickly followed by Thayre, trapped leg before wicket for 14.

With just three runs needed for victory, Phil Wright seeking just one to reach 2000 Tipton runs persuaded his captain to be promoted from his normal number eleven slot and reached his goal, hitting his first ball for a single.

Chris Tubbs was undone by a high full toss and was caught at square leg so it was left to Neil Winter to come in and hit the winning run with plenty of overs to spare.