1sts skittled by one man Silverstone show

Another piece of history was written for Willoughby on Saturday although not in the way they would have wanted as they were quite literally skittled to defeat at Silverstone on Saturday with one man clearly the headline act.

Ex-Worcestershire seamer and pro Graeme Cessford bettered his recent six and seven wickets hauls with another powerful and destructive spell to send the visitors and their stumps crashing.

Having lost the toss and being sent into the field with a quick outfield and short boundaries to contend with, matters started well for Willoughby. The father and son opening attack of Karl and Jake Quinney removed openers Key and Jackson in consecutive overs via catches from Mark Fell and Nikesh Mistry before a suicidal run out then reduced the hosts to 34 for 3. Despite the elder Quinney pulling up injured, the score then became 42 for 4 with Cessford going for only 23 off the bowling off Fell to a sharp catch by Jake Quinney at square leg.

A fine 12 over spell of slow bowling from Dave Alcock kept the hosts in check and yielded figures of 3 for 32 including a spectacular catch taken by the also now-injured Fell. However 37 from Sach Patil and some double figures contributions lower down the order either side of a short rain delay eventually gave the hosts a total of 163 for 8 off 42 overs.

On paper that target was achievable, were it not for the express pace of Cessford who steamed in from close to the boundary and was to ultimately rip through the Willoughby batting line-up.

Martin Nichols was first to go playing on after settling in and guiding away two boundaries and thereafter it was a procession as eight of Cessford’s nine wickets for 24 were all bowled. Stuart Hall top scored with 22 and Alcock made 13 but Willoughby were quite literally blown away by bowling of a completely different level, making 67 all out.