Rayno Arendse and Michael Warnes continued their form with the ball and the Buckenham openers found runs very hard to come by. The first wicket to fall was Fudge for a duck, caught and bowled Arendse. Eight overs later Cromer got the wicket of pro Vithanage for just 8, with an excellent run out from Richard Charlwood.
With the visitors scoring at just three runs an over they needed to up the run rate, but now Colin Brown and Dean Elliott were making it difficult for the batsmen.
Despite the wickets falling around him, Terry Perry had moved beyond his half century with a stubborn display. From 35 overs Old Buckenham had scored just 101 runs for the loss of 4.
Banham had now joined Perry at the crease and in the brief partnership they upped the run rate to over 5 an over. In a spell of 10 overs, when the Cromer bowlers went slightly off the boil, Banham punished them to make a quick fire 37, in a partnership of 56. Warnes got rid of Banham, leg before in the 44th over and when Charlwood bowled Perry (70) Cromer were sitting in a strong position. Superb bowling from Charlwood, in particular, at the death saw him pick up 3 more wickets to finish with brilliant figures of 4 for 8.
The last man was dismissed with 8 balls remaining in the innings, and Old Buckenham were all out for 189. Warnes also finished with very good figures of 2 for 44 from 10 overs.
Cromer needed to score 190 from 51 overs to secure the win, and with the strength and depth in batting Tom Davies was very confident his side could reach their target. The end result showed was right to be confident, but the batsmen lower down the order would not be required as Davies and Arendse would open the batting and both carry their bats to the end.
Arendse started the quickest, finding the boundary regularly in the early overs. Once the skipper got of the mark after 19 balls he then batted with the same fluidity as Arendse.
Arendse was the first to reach his half century, from 54 balls. Davies followed suit in making 50, his taking 74 deliveries. By the time both men were past 50 there was never any doubt in the result, it was now a case of the margin of the victory.
Tom Davies would score the winning runs in the 37th over with two well struck sixes, securing an emphatic 10 wickets win for his team. Davies ended up with two more runs than his opening partner finishing 88 not out, scoring 11 fours and 5 sixes. Arendse was not out 86, hitting 14 fours and 1 six.
Tom Davies and the rest of his side will be delighted with the result. They did superbly in the field to restrict Old Buckenham to 189, and then awesome displays from Davies and Arendse saw Cromer past the winning post. In future games, if conditions suit, the captain would have no concerns in bowling first if this kind of performance was to be shown.
Hopefully another win will come this Saturday when Cromer travel to Swardeston.