BOWLERS shared the honours on the first day of Oxfordshire's Minor Counties Championship Western Division match with Cornwall at Christ Church yesterday.

Oxfordshire elected to bat and were dismissed for 158 off 58 overs, before restricting Cornwall to 166-7 from the same number of overs.

Ian Hawtin and Bruce Ellison opened promisingly with a stand of 32 before Greg Shreck bowled Hawtin.

Shreck then removed Ellison, Stewart Laudat and Paul Hemming for the addition of 11 runs before Rob Williams and Graham Savin steadied the boat with Oxfordshire's only worthwhile partnership of 63.

Cornwall's batsmen found run-making no easier and Savin soon made inroads by sending back Steve Williams and Mark Saxelby with consecutive balls.

Keith Arnold then stepped in and reduced the visitors to 70-5, but Gary Thomas held the innings together with an unbeaten 82.

When Ian Curtis was brought on he ended a stand of 45 with his second ball.

And, in the last over of the day, he had Furze caught by Hawtin to gain a third bowling point. OXON

First Innings

I Hawtin b Shreck... 12

Bruce Ellison c Ellison b ShreckM-I16

S Laudat c Gazzard b ShreckM-I3

R J Williams lbw FurzeM-I18

P Hemming c Purchase b ShreckM-I0

G Savin c Thomas b EllisonM-I49

M Bellhouse c Ellison b ShreckM-I24

R Evans b EllisonM-I2

K Arnold lbw ShreckM-I5

A Jones b ShreckM-I0

I Curtis not outM-I5

ExtrasM-I24

Total (all out)...158

Fall: 1-32, 2-42, 3-43, 4-43, 5-106, 6-126, 7-138, 8-149, 9-149, 10-158.

Bowling: Shreck 20.2-5-75-7, Willcock 11-1-16-0, Ellison 18-6-46-2, Furze 9-3-11-1.

CORNWALL

First Innings

S Williams c R Williams b SavinM-I6

G Thomas not outM-I82

M Saxelby b SavinM-I0

R Wilder c Curtis b ArnoldM-I4

B Purchase b ArnoldM-I10

T Sharpe lbw ArnoldM-I0

K Wilcock c Williams b CurtisM-I21

G Furze c Hawtin b CurtisM-I21

C Ellison not outM-I3

ExtrasM-I19

Total (7 wkts)...166

Fall: 1-25, 2-25, 3-42, 4-66, 5-70, 6-115, 7-163.

Bowling: Arnold 21-7-31-3, Savin 11-2-20-2, Jones 10-1-43-0, Bellhouse 4-0-13-0, Evans 5-0-22-0, Curtis 7-1-18-2.

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