A SQUARE driven boundary by Adam Pike off the fourth ball of the last over steered Oxfordshire to a two-wickets win over Oxford University in the annual one-day match in The Parks yesterday.

Chasing the Dark Blues 255-5 off 50 overs, the county lost two early wickets before Ben Thompson and Charlie Knightley steadied the innings with a stand of 62.

When Thompson, the 17-year-old Horspath captain, was dismissed, Oxon skipper Rob Williams joined Knightley and they set up the win with a partnership of 90.

Knightley, 82 off 93 balls, Williams and Adam Cook were dismissed in four overs and at 186-6 the match looked to have swung in favour of the Dark Blues.

But Ian Hawtin, who struck Mather for three boundaries in the 44th over and Shahbaz Ali plundered 59 off eight overs before Hawtin was run out with 11 needed.

It went to the last over when six runs were needed and Pike hit them off with a couple of twos and the winning boundary.

Earlier, Ross Garland (66) and Byron Byrne (68) had punished some wayward seam bowling to lay the foundations of the Dark Blues' total. OXFORD UNIVERSITY

R Garland b JeacockM-I66KJ Parker c Hawtin b ShahM-I15KB Byrne st Hawtin b CookM-I68KJ Fulton st Hawtin b CookM-I6KC Lightfoot c Pike b CookM-I16KJ Claughton not outM-I30KN Pirihi not outM-I15KExtrasM-I39

Total (5 wkts)...255KFall: 1-58, 2-166, 3-180, 4-197, 5-219.

Bowling: Pike 5-0-40-0, Ali 7-0-20-0, Shah 9-1-69-1, Jeacock 10-1-39-1, Curtis 10-1-38-0, Cook 9-2-42-3.

OXFORDSHIRE

K Mustow c Pirihi b MatherM-I5KA Shah c Barnes b KhanM-I2KB Thompson c Byrne b FergusonM-I12KC Knightley b ByrneM-I82KR Williams c Fulton b KhanM-I44KA Cook b KhanM-I2KI Hawtin run outM-I33KS Ali c Byrne b LightfootM-I19KP Jeacock not outM-I1KA Pike not outM-I9KExtrasM-I49KTotal (8 wkts)...258

Fall: 1-9, 2-21, 3-83, 4-173, 5-182, 6-186, 7-245, 8-249.

Bowling: Mather 8-0-36-1, Khan 9.4-0-35-3, Garland 3-0-24-0, Ferguson 10-4-64-1, Byrne 10-0-58-1, Lightfoot 9-0-29-1.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.