The form book was well and truly turned on its head in this return fixture played at St Germans in bright and breezy conditions. Tideford, having been forced to field a number of Under-14 players the previous week, were able to select a much stronger side for this match.

This was certainly not something that the visitors appreciated, and there appeared to be a little ill feeling among some of the St Neot team that, after the easy win of the previous week, perhaps picking up all 20 points would just be a formality.

Tideford won the toss and invited the visitors to bat. Swain, making a welcome return, and Luff, who had bowled so well the previous week but with no luck, soon had St Neot in trouble. Andrew Kent survived a couple of early scares, but he holes out to Copp at mid-off to give Swain the first of his five wickets. Luff, using all of his experience bowling into the stiff breeze, then bowled both Clapham and Pearce without either batsmen trouble the scorers. When Swain removed Tamblyn for yet another duck, the innings was in disarray at just 19 for the loss of four wickets.

Marks was attempting to steady the ship, batting sensibly and looking for support at the other end. His patient innings was ended by Luff, with the score standing at 43-5. At this stage, a score in the region of 120 looked to be the best that St Neot could achieve. However, the St Neot middle order then set about consolidating the innings, demonstrating the depth of their batting and showing one of the reasons why they have been at the top of the table throughout the season. With Swain and Luff now out of the attack, good batting by Searle, Taylor and Kent enabled a score of 160 to be posted.

In reply, G Burn and Copp got Tideford off to a good start before the later was unlucky adjudged lbw for 18 to the wayward Bunt, who was having difficulty with his line and length. Burn was batting sensibly and, together with Holland, took the score to 80. Holland was removed by Taylor off the first ball after the drinks break to a very poor shot, demonstrating yet again the tendency for this interlude to break the batsmen's concentration and claim a cricket. Taylor went on to claim 5-45 in a good spell.

However, the balance of the match had swung very much in the direction of Tideford and by now the wheels were starting to come off the St Neot wagon. It took both the umpire and the captain to calm the visitors in the wake of some over-enthusiastic and orchestrated appealing, backward point or deep square-leg probably not being the best position to claim lbw, but it was symptomatic of the realisation of defeat.

Vaughan Roberts had once again batted well for 40 but following his dismissal, there was a middle order collapse. Trundley, Bishop and R Holland were all caught needlessly hitting the ball in the air when sensible batting was required. It appeared that Tideford were about to grab defeat from the jaws of victory as the game swung St Neot's way, with 11 runs still required from the final over to be bowled by Fraser. However, some frantic running and excellent stroke play by Darren Shaw, hitting a boundary off the final delivery, saw Tideford home for a famous victory.

Scores - St Neot 160-8 (D Taylor 34; G Kent 32; M Searle 28; M Swain 5-31; P Luff 2-40; D Holland 1-23). Tideford 164-8 (V Roberts 40; G Burn 26; D Holland 20; D Taylor 5-45; M Bunt 2-24; I Fraser 1-41).

Tideford (19) bt St Neot (8) by two wkts.