Indoor round-up

Oxfordshire captured the fours title at the Short Mat National Championships at Kempston IBC, Bedford.

Julian Bradbury (Didcot Conservative Club), Mike Keevil (Wallingford SMBC), Les Woodward (Warborough and Shillingford SMBC) and Roger Wiggins (Wootton SMBC) gave Oxon their third success in this event in the last nine years.

They outplayed Norfolk in the final for an 11-2 success.

It came after Oxon staged a thrilling comeback from 5-0 down to pip favourites Chesh-ire, whose rink contained four England players, 7-6 in the semi-finals.

Oxon had defeated West Sussex 9-3 in the quarter-finals after beating the Oxfordshire rink of Ted Mills, Peter Collett, Adam Dickson and Alan Foster (all Grove SMBC) 9-3 in the first knockout round.

The eventual champions had qualified for the later stages by finishing runners-up in their group, defeating Essex 13-5 and Derbyshire 8-5, but losing 10-3 to Devon.

A week earlier, Didcot BC’s David Hancock finished runner-up in the National Under 18s Championship at the same venue.

In a thrilling final, Hancock was pipped by Cambridge’s Edward Elmore on an extra end.

Hancock had knocked out defending champion Matt Sifford, from Essex, 10-9 in the semi-finals.

Calvin Williams (Didcot Conservative Club) and AJ Brown (Wootton BC) went out in the earlier stages.